Nicole Kidman knows that certain photos of her got turned into an uplifting meme following her divorce from Tom Cruise. However, according to the Oscar-winner, the pictures have been completely misinterpreted.

The meme in question involves photos of Kidman looking positively elated, throwing her arms out in a relief, and looking to the sky with a smile as she steps out on to the street. Often, the memes include a caption along the lines of, "On this day in 2001, Nicole Kidman’s divorce from Tom Cruise was finalized!" However, according to Kidman herself, the photos have been taken completely out of context.

Speaking with GQ, Kidman debunked the beloved meme, saying, "That was not me; that was from a film, that wasn't real life. I know that image!"

As for the story that usually accompanies the images, regarding her split from Cruise, the Big Little Lies star explained, "That's not true." According to GQ, Kidman laughed while reflecting on the meme, and said, "There's always something behind the actual images that go out there, right?"

Cruise filed for divorce from Kidman in February 2001, citing their date of separation as Dec. 21, 2000, just days prior to their tenth wedding anniversary, Entertainment Weekly reported.

While discussing the meme, Kidman also referenced the memorable GIF in which she appears to be clapping in a very strange way at the Oscars in 2017. "I've also seen the one where I'm clapping like that," she said, reenacting the funny moment. "'Cause I had a massive heavy borrowed ring on and it was really painful, and I was scared of wrecking the jewelry. Ha!"

As for the unforgettable AMC advert she made, in which she implored people to return to movie theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic, Kidman has no regrets. "'Heartbreak feels good in a place like this,'" she said, mimicking herself. "But I'll do anything for cinema, so you can meme me as much as you want."

Throughout her astounding career, Nicole Kidman has proven she's capable of taking on any genre. From her emotive turn in Big Little Lies to appearances in superhero movies like Aquaman, Kidman is a chameleon. So when asked why she has appeared in several blockbusters, as opposed to the thought-provoking, independent movies she's known for, Kidman had the perfect response.

In a new interview with L’Officiel magazine, Kidman explained, "Everyone's like, 'Why are you doing that?' I'm like, 'Because I get to kiss Batman!'" She continued, "The thing people don't understand is, it's not about the check. A lot of the mainstream big blockbusters that I do are hopefully different." Kidman, of course, starred opposite Val Kilmer in 1995's Batman Forever.

She also revealed she chose to star in Aquaman after famed horror director James Wan asked her personally. As it turns out, Kidman is a huge horror movie fan, and she's hoping to take on some terrifying roles in the near future.

"I've not done classic horror yet," she explained. "Hardcore horror. I’m putting it out there, because I watch hardcore horror. I’m a fan of Ti West!" West, of course, recently directed a horror trilogy with Mia Goth, culminating with 2024's MaXXXine. It's more than a little exciting that Kidman is keen to work with the auteur.

During the same interview, Kidman opened up about her process as an actor, especially when it comes to her emotions. "I obviously feel things really, really, really deeply," she told the publication. "My mother would always say, raising me, it was raising a highly sensitive child."

For Kidman, being in tune with her emotions can aid her craft as an actor, but can quickly become overwhelming, too. "Part of my path in life is learning not to be so overly empathetic with people that it destroys me or sabotages me, because I can move into other people's skin and psyche in a very weird way," she said. "It's almost like a pull. I can physically manifest it and emotionally manifest it. It can be very, very frightening at times."

Here’s some good news for your Sunday: Nicole Kidman, one of the stars of HBO’s Big Little Lies, has confirmed that there will indeed be a third season of the show, E! News reports.

“I loved Big Little Lies, because it sort of came along at a time in my life when I had my children and I was thinking I was going to retire,” Kidman said while speaking onstage at a Ladies Professional Golf Association Q&A event in Naples, Florida. “And then this situation came along where Reese Witherspoon and I were able to produce that show and create that show. And then all of you watched it and made it a massive success.” Taking a beat before delivering the big news, Kidman then added “And we will be bringing you a third one, just FYI.”

The show was last onscreen in July 2019, and fans have long asked for a third season of the series, which stars Kidman, Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Zoe Kravitz, and Shailene Woodley (Meryl Streep was added to the cast for the show’s second season). Originally debuting in 2017, Big Little Lies is based off of a 2014 novel of the same name by Liane Moriarty about high-powered yet troubled moms living in Monterey, California. It won eight Emmy Awards.

The show’s director Jean-Marc Vallée died “suddenly and unexpectedly,” his representative said, in 2021 at just 58 years old, the result of a fatal cardiac arrhythmia. His loss is why Kravitz said the show was likely done for good: “I don’t think it is [returning],” she said last year. “We talked about doing a season three a lot and, unfortunately, Jean-Marc Vallée, our incredible director, passed away this last year and I just can’t imagine going on without him. He really was the visionary for that show. So, unfortunately, it’s done.”

Never say never! Kidman herself was skeptical of the show’s return back in 2021, where she said on “Andy Cohen Live” on SiriusXM “I don’t know. I know that we would,” she said, per Us Weekly. “We all are very, very good friends, and the idea of working together again. I mean literally Laura just texted me…But yeah, the idea of being together and, you know, [you get to a] point in your life where you go, ‘Gosh, it’s just—it’s nice to be around the people I like being around and working with the people I like working around,’ let alone on a hit show like that. So, you know, but that is not, it’s not on the cards, but yeah, we would like to do it.”

No release date has been set for the show.

The first season of Nine Perfect Strangers ended either very pleasantly—with everyone's arcs tied up in a neat little bow—or in a bit of a question mark with only a book-hallucination to rely on, depending on who you ask. Either way, it left the door wide open, particularly in terms of Masha's (Nicole Kidman) story continuing. But with the show being originally named a "limited series," with only eight episodes, it's not a guarantee. Here's everything we know about the possibility of a season 2 of Nine Perfect Strangers.

What could happen in Nine Perfect Strangers season 2?

We learn that Frances penned a book, aptly titled Nine Perfect Strangers—a nod to the real-life book the show was based on—and that Masha definitely read the book and also stole (or was given) Ben's yellow Lamborghini. Masha didn't end up in jail after all and is shown cruising along the Pacific coast, with the hallucination of her dead daughter sitting next to her (implying that Masha is probably still doing a lot of drugs now that she's unlocked the power to see Tatiana).

The fate of the strangers is somewhat unknown—it's implied that Jessica and Ben end up working at Tranquillum House; Lars has a baby; Tony reconciles with his kids and is happily living with Frances; Carmel has healed from her trauma and now works in group therapy—but that could've all just been how the characters in Frances's book wind up. Which means if a second season did get green-lit, we could learn what really happened to the strangers. Or, if it turns out the season 1 ending wasn't just a reflection of Frances' writing and was reality, season 2 could delve into what happens after they all seemingly found happiness. Do Frances and Tony really stay together and learn to trust and love again? Do Jessica and Ben actually enjoy running a wellness resort? How does Lars fare as a father?

Not to mention, Masha "lives nine lives"—so season 2 could see the wellness guru trying to fix a new group of strangers in a new city or country. Or is she content spending time with the ghost of her daughter? Or perhaps her missteps finally catch up to her (there is that unresolved storyline about the wife of the man who died at Tranquillum blaming his death on Masha). Delilah and Yao could also have roles in the second season: Will Masha go after Delilah for outing her to the police in the first place?

Has Hulu confirmed a season 2?

The first season of Nine Perfect Strangers was based on the book of the same name by Liane Moriarty. Since there's no book sequel, it's not a given that the show would continue. But when writer/producer David E. Kelley and Nicole Kidman are involved, never say never. The pair's other project, Big Little Lies—also based on a Moriarty novel—got a second season despite not having book material to guide it. That being said, Kelley and Kidman's other project based on a book, HBO's The Undoing, didn't do a second season, despite being one of 2020's most buzzy shows, as was originally planned.

But if it's up to the show's director, Jonathan Levine, season 2 of Nine Perfect Strangers will definitely happen. While speaking with BuzzFeed, Levine laid out an entire plan for a second season that would turn the series into an anthology, introducing a new cast of characters to the concept. (This would also solve the problem of trying to lure A-listers like Melissa McCarthy and Bobby Cannavale back to the project.)

"The one thing I did think would be cool is if you could get, like, another group of nine," he said. "One of them would be, like, a famous person playing themselves. I would love for people to want more. And then it's about whether we could convince [David E. Kelley], the series creator, and Nicole [Kidman]."

Like previous Nicole Kidman/David E. Kelley vehicles The Undoing and Big Little Lies, the new Hulu series Nine Perfect Strangers is based on a hit book—and, in fact, a book written by bestselling Australian authorLiane Moriarty, who also penned Big Little Lies. Published in 2018, Nine Perfect Strangers the book features all the same key characters as the series—Masha; Tony; Francis; Napoleon, Zoe, and Heather Marconi; Ben and Jessica; Lars; Yao and Delilah; and Carmel—but the plot of the series diverges sharply from the book's after the first episode.

As with Big Little Lies, the book Nine Perfect Strangers is set in an entirely different country than the series. Moriarty's novel is set in Australia, but David E. Kelley moved the adaptation to the States (even though, confusingly, the series was actually filmed in Australia). But, again, as with Big Little Lies, Kelley kept Moriarty's cast of characters and simply adapted the plot for Nine Perfect Strangers the series to make it better suited to a television format. Ahead, a guide to what's notably different and similar between the series and the hit book. Spoilers ahead for episodes 1-4 of Nine Perfect Strangers.

In the book, Masha does not receive threatening messages.

In many ways, Masha of the book is the same Masha that is brought to life by Nicole Kidman: platinum blonde, striking, self-assured, and originally from Russia. In the book, Masha considers herself a personal savior for the guests in her wellness retreat, willing to go to any lengths to help them re-connect with themselves, and that's reflected in the series.

But the series introduces a new storyline: the threatening texts Masha receives. The series hints that it's someone at the retreat, one of the guests or Delilah or Yao, especially since the anonymous threat-maker films Masha during her morning swim in episode three (and this is private property, you'd assume). But the Masha of the book would probably react to such texts in the exact same way Masha of the series does: with cool, superior detachment.

In the series, Carmel has violent tendencies.

Carmel of the book is a sweet, reassuringly ordinary woman who has spent the last decade raising her daughters—the same daughters who are now away with her ex-husband and the younger, extremely attractive woman he left Carmel for. In the aftermath of the betrayal, Carmel of the book suffers with body dysmorphia and is forced to reevaluate her life choices, but she does not exhibit any violent or dangerous tendencies.

The Carmel of the series is played to perfection by Regina Hall, but the character herself is quite different. This Carmel has faced the same betrayal, but the experience has left her with violent tendencies—perhaps she's always had them?—which we see in episode three when she tries to attack Lars and tells Jessica she wants to punch her. She's a sympathetic character, but one that we can't quite trust, one that seems capable of going off the rails at any point.

In the book, the guests do not consent to being drugged.

In Moriarty's book, the guests of Tranquillum House only learn they've been drugged towards the end of their stay, during a climactic final day. Before that, they'd noticed some behavioral changes, but nothing as dramatic as in the series—no violence, for example. But it only takes three episodes of the series for the guests, specifically Heather, to realize that their smoothies are spiked with psychedelics. From there, the series deviates quite dramatically from the book, because each of the guests know they're micro-dosing and are actively consenting to it, drinking their smoothies—which, in the series, become increasingly potent—with full knowledge of their contents.

In the book, it's also Heather who's the first to realize they're being drugged—and towards the end, the guests are given higher doses, which is what sparks Heather's realization—but the guests never once consent to the process.

In the series, the activities of Tranquillum House are quite different.

While the guests of the book do meet one-on-one with Masha, many of the mandated activities of the series—the sack race, Earth Day, the introductory session—make no appearance in the book. Actually, Tranquillum House seems more typically wellness retreat-like in the book, with guests going on hikes, doing fasts, choosing their own activities, and practicing a "noble silence" for five straight days.

In the series, it's more actively transformative, with back-to-back mandatory activities that are better suited to a television series. (Five days of "noble silence" probably wouldn't have translated well.)

In the series, Yao, Delilah, and Masha have strong sexual bonds.

In the series, Delilah and Yao are a couple, but both are hinted to be sexually connected to Masha—it's not immediately clear whether they've had or are actively having sex with her, but there's a lot of sexual energy between the three of them.

In the book, Yao and Delilah aren't a couple—though they do have sex in a detached, friends-with-benefits way—and neither has sex with Masha, although Yao has a huge crush on his boss that Masha is able to use to her advantage.

What happens when you put nine strangers with inner demons in a secluded retreat run by an unorthodox Russian wellness guru played by Nicole Kidman? Hulu's new original series, Nine Perfect Strangers, brings us a thrilling look at the fictional Tranquillium House, where its guests, played by stars including Melissa McCarthy and Regina Hall, work through their personal trauma through meditation, physical activity, and some special smoothies. If the premise isn't enough to tune in, the show is also created by David E Kelley and based off a Liane Moriarty book, reuniting the team that brought us HBO's Big Little Lies.

New episodes of Nine Perfect Strangers will come out on Wednesdays, with the streamer expected to release the episodes at 12:01 a.m. ET, like it has with all Hulu originals so far. However, Hulu likes to put its own spin on the release schedule, which gives fans a chance to immerse themselves in the show before switching to a more traditional format.

The Release Schedule for Nine Perfect Strangers

• Episode 1, "Random Acts of Mayhem," releases on August 18.
• Episode 2, "The Critical Path," releases on August 18.
• Episode 3, "Earth Day," releases on August 18.
• Episode 4, "Brave New World," releases on August 25.
• Episode 5, "Sweet Surrender," releases on September 1.
• Episode 6, "Motherlode," releases on September 8.
• Episode 7 releases on September 15.
• Episode 8 releases on September 22.

The streamer released the first three episodes of the show at once, giving viewers the chance to get hooked with a short binge-watch. After the first three episodes, the season switched to a weekly release format. While the waiting may be rough for fans who want to speed through the story, the weekly release gives us more time to build our theories on what exactly is going on in Tranquillum House.

Spoilers ahead. The show is also expected to get trippier as each episode progresses, as Kidman's wellness guru Masha Dmitrichenko slowly increases the psychedelic dose on the guests' smoothies. Viewers will also get more insight on Masha's mysterious past, which seems to differ from her backstory in Moriarty's novel, as do the threatening notes she receives. As for the final two episodes, details have been kept under wraps so far, so the conclusion to the thrilling retreat is anyone's guess.

We've never wanted to be transported into a TV show more than in the first episode of Nine Perfect Strangers. The new Hulu series from David E. Kelley, based on Liane Moriarty's book of the same name, follows the nine guests of Tranquillum House, an exclusive wellness resort run by a Russian guru named Masha, played by Nicole Kidman. Though Masha's methods are pretty intense, requiring guests to give up all electronics and at one point dig their own graves, the gorgeous forest and amenities offered at the retreat make us wonder if downing a few smoothies would be worth 10 days of luxurious rest.

Though the show is set in Northern California, the show was filmed in a more secluded location. The COVID-19 pandemic upended creators' original plans to film in Big Sur, so the production moved to locations in author Moriarty's native Australia. Here's what we know about the real-life estates where Nine Perfect Strangers was filmed.

Nine Perfect Strangers was filmed in Byron Bay, Australia.

Though the Nine Perfect Strangers novel is set in Australia, the Hulu show changes Tranquillum House's location to Northern California, a similar setting change as Big Little Lies. Filming was originally planned for California as well, but the pandemic changed those plans. Instead, the cast and crew, led by Kidman and the Australian production company Made Up Stories, spent five months filming in the posh beach city Byron Bay.

According to Conde Nast Traveller, Byron Bay is well-known for being a wellness hub itself with "hippie residents." The small town even apparently has the nickname "Goop-ville." Besides being a popular surfing location, Byron Bay also hosts international fashion, writers', and film festivals every year.

The show filmed most of the Tranquillum House scenes at the spa Soma.

Most of the Tranquillum House scenes, specifically those involving the gorgeous home where the nine strangers stay, were filmed at a real-life spa called Soma. Many of the more traditional amenities included in the show, including a freshwater pool, a communal fire pit, and a geodesic yoga dome, are real amenities at Soma. The property is also host to a 200-year-old fig tree, which stands in for the forest-bathing tree that Regina Hall and Melissa McCarthy's characters use.

Director Johnathan Levine said that Soma was a perfect match for the vibes of the show's fictional resort. "The resort itself is such a big character. It was perfect with its amazing woods, jungles and beaches, and captured the feeling we were looking for."

Located on a 22-acre property in Ewingsdale, outside of Byron Bay, Soma is described on its website as "a contemporary oasis purpose-built to serve as a sanctuary for retreats and immersive experiences with a goal to elevate creativity and consciousness." Vedic master Gary Gorrow is a mainstay at Soma, regularly running retreats that include yoga, an Ayurvedic diet, and treatments to help guests "re-engineer themselves inside and out."

Other indoor scenes were filmed at Lune de Sang, a sustainable timber plantation.

When the production team found themselves in need of more space to film, they found another gorgeous outdoor compound nearby. According to Architectural Digest, a sustainable timber plantation called Lune de Sang was the second location where the Tranquillum House scenes were filmed.

The structures at the plantation, which features a private residence and multiple sheds, stood in for other parts of the guests' residence, including an outdoor yoga space and more interiors of the guests' building. Lune de Sang also had many fig trees, which helped with continuity, making the show's retreat seem like one giant space instead of two separate estates.

The cliff-diving scenes were filmed at the nearby Killen Falls.

The non-resort scenes, including flashback scenes for Masha and the guests, were filmed throughout Australia. According to Conde Nast Traveller, most were filmed in Sydney, while winter scenes were filmed in the town of Ballina in New South Wales, where the production put snow down themselves.

Some of the outdoor scenes, including the river and cliff-diving scenes, were filmed at the Killen Falls waterfall and nature walk in Ballina. Though swimming isn't recommended because of the varying water quality, there is also a viewing platform right above the falls.

The highly-anticipated Hulu series Nine Perfect Strangers just premiered, and its star-studded cast has already won us over. The newest collaboration between Big Little Lies' David E Kelley and Nicole Kidman, the show depicts an ultra-exclusive wellness resort run by Russian guru Masha (Kidman). When nine strangers arrive at the resort with inner struggles they're hoping to heal, Masha's unorthodox methods leave the guests wondering what it truly means to be well.

In addition to Hollywood stars including Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Bobby Cannavale, and Luke Evans, the cast of Nine Perfect Strangers also includes some up-and-coming actors in breakout roles. One outstanding performance comes from Samara Weaving, who plays Jessica, an aspiring social media influencer who hopes to strengthen her marriage with her husband, Ben. Though horror fans may be familiar with Weaving, everyone's going to be raving about the Australian actress soon. Here's everything we know about the up-and-coming star.

She was born in Adelaide, Australia.

Weaving, 29, was born in Adelaide, a town in southern Australia. Her childhood was spent living several countries in Asia, including Singapore, Fiji, and Indonesia. She also has some fellow actors in the family. Her uncle is Lord of the Rings and Transformers actor Hugo Weaving.

She decided to pursue acting at age 12 after seeing Pirates of the Caribbean.

Weaving started acting at a young age, after her parents put her in classes to help her get over her shyness. She told Harper's BAZAAR that she decided to fully pursue acting after watching The Pirates of the Caribbean when she was 12. "I was exported out of this world. I was just so filled with curiosity, and I knew I wanted to be a part of whatever just happened to me. I wanted to know how to get an invitation to that party,” she said.

Her big break was in the soap opera Home and Away.

Following a long line of Australian who make it in America, Weaving got her big break on the soap opera Home and Away. She was cast when she was 17, and played teen Indi Walker from 2009-2013. Other famous Home and Away alums include Chris Hemsworth, Naomi Watts, and Heath Ledger.

She's best known for acting in cult horror films.

After leaving Home and Away, Weaving began pursuing roles in the U.S. Besides landing Nine Perfect Strangers, she's best known for leading several cult-favorite horror films. She played the titular role in the Netflix film The Babysitter in 2017, and later played a bride who is hunted by her spouse's family for a demonic ritual in 2019's Ready or Not (a must-watch film). Weaving also has a Screen Actors Guild award as part of the cast of 2018's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

She has a lot of respect for influencers after playing Jessica.

For her Nine Perfect Strangers role, Weaving researched Instagram influencers, and even spied on influencers IRL at coffee shops in Australia. She told W Magazine that playing the aspiring influencer made her rethink society's at-times misogynistic judgment of influencers. "It’s really hard to be an influencer. The marketplace is swamped with people, all trying to do the same thing. You have to be a real business woman to get ahead in the influencer space. That was what drew me to the character: smashing those patriarchal, very stale resentments that are in our culture," she said.

Weaving also told WWD that she hopes Jessica's story, which includes struggling with body dysmorphia, will inspire viewers to try not to make snap judgments. "I even hear it now. I’ll just be in the car with friends, and someone will go, ‘Oh, she got too much filler.’ I’m just like, ‘Who cares, though?’ I remember, when tabloids would be like, ‘They’ve ruined their face.’ Jesus, this is someone’s life. If it makes them feel better, what’s it to you?"

She's close friends with look-alike Margot Robbie.

Weaving is also part of a meme highlighting a group of women who look remarkably similar, including Margot Robbie, Jamie Pressly, and Sex Education's Emma Mackey. Weaving told the The Sydney Morning Herald in 2019 that she's been mistaken for Robbie on the street before, with strangers saying that they loved her in The Wolf of Wall Street. Turns out the Aussie actresses are close! “Margs and I hang out a lot,” she told SMH. “My fiancé [American writer and producer Jimmy Warden] and her husband [British director Tom Ackerley] are really close. She’s a wonderful, inspiring woman.”

She's a huge fan of Love Island.

Like most of the world, Weaving's a fan of the international reality-show franchise Love Island. She told W Magazine that she, Robbie, and a group of their friends all watch the show, and Robbie even hosted a Love Island-themed party this summer. "Our whole group of Aussies, Americans, and Brits over here in L.A., we’re all obsessed with Love Island. I just think it’s a fascinating human study—and a fun dress-up theme," she said. She also described the dress code for the party as "skimpy bikinis and lots of fake tan."

She's scored roles in several highly anticipated films.

Nine Perfect Strangers is the first in a run of huge roles for Weaving. She's also to star alongside Brad Pitt in Damien Chazelle's new film Babylon, and she'll play former Playboy bunny Holly Madison in the miniseries Down the Rabbit Hole, based on Madison's memoir. “It’s going to blow the socks off of what people think of Playboy and Hugh Hefner," Weaving said to Harper's BAZAAR about the role.

A Nicole Kidman and David E. Kelley collaboration is enough reason to try a show. After all, the prestige TV duo has already brought us the captivating shows Big Little Lies and The Undoing. Lucky for us, Hulu's Nine Perfect Strangers, premiering August 18, has also stacked its cast with a number of beloved actors, including Melissa McCarthy, Regina Hall, and Luke Evans. Nine Perfect Strangers takes its viewers to Tranquillum House, an all-inclusive wellness retreat run by Russian guru Masha (Kidman). Masha has handpicked nine people who all need to heal from inner demons, but as the retreat goes on, the guests realize that Masha's unorthodox methods may mean using those inner demons against them. The ensemble drama has a large cast to keep track of, so here's a rundown on who's who in Nine Perfect Strangers.

Nicole Kidman as Masha Dmitrichenko

Wellness guru Masha runs Tranquillum House, an uber-expensive, secluded retreat in Northern California. A former CEO who quit after a near-death experience, Masha handpicks Tranquillum's guests and uses unorthodox methods to make them better people. Kidman has become the prestige-TV queen in recent years, thanks to her collaborations with David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies, The Undoing). The Australian actress is also, of course, a movie star, known for her roles in Moulin Rouge and Cold Mountain.

Tiffany Boone as Delilah

One of Masha's attendants, Delilah has a mysterious past that led to her working at Tranquillum House. Though she believes that Masha is amazing, Delilah has reservations about her methods, not to mention how close Masha is to Delilah's boyfriend, Yao. Boone had a star turn last year, playing the younger version of Kerry Washington's character, Mia, in Little Fires Everywhere. The Baltimore native has also appeared in the series The Chi, Hunters, and The Following.

Manny Jacinto as Yao

Tranquillum House attendant Yao has an intense connection to Masha. Besides being her right hand at the retreat, Yao was the paramedic who treated Masha on the night she "died." Now he has to balance his devotion to Masha with his relationship with Delilah. Jacinto's breakthrough role was playing gentle idiot Jason Mendoza in the NBC comedy The Good Place. Since then his career blown up, including being cast in the Top Gun remake.

Melissa McCarthy as Frances Welty

Romance novelist Frances Welty has had a rough year. She has a bad back, her publishers want to end her contract, and she's been scammed by a man she met online. She arrives at Tranquillum House nursing a lot of wounds, but she's hesitant about giving in to the experience. Melissa McCarthy is a comedy icon, who received an Oscar nomination for her performance in Bridesmaids. Lately she's shown that she's excellent at dramatic acting as well, receiving a second nomination for the film Can You Ever Forgive Me? McCarthy's also set to play Ursula in the live-action The Little Mermaid remake.

Bobby Cannavale as Tony Hogburn

Tony is a former football star who has become addicted to painkillers after a severe injury. Though he came to Tranquillum House willingly, he's stubborn and antagonistic towards Masha and all of the wellness methods she uses. He also has a lot to work through, if Masha can get through to him. New Jersey-born Cannavale has won Emmy awards for his roles in Will and Grace, Nurse Jackie, and Boardwalk Empire. Besides appearing in more than a few of your favorite shows, he's also been in a relationship with Bridesmaids actress Rose Byrne for eight years.

Michael Shannon as Napoleon Marconi

Napoleon is the head of the Marconi family, who have come to Tranquillum House to heal from the death of their son and brother, Zach. A high school teacher, Napoleon is very positive, more than a little goofy, and tries to look on the bright side of things. Shannon mostly works in film and has been nominated for two Oscars, for his roles in Revolutionary Road and Nocturnal Animals. Most recently he played Walt Thromby in the murder mystery film Knives Out.

Asher Keddie as Heather Marconi

Wife of Napoleon and mother to Zoe, Heather Marconi is still reeling for the death of her son Zach. She's extremely protective of her daughter, Zoe, and she's at odds with Masha and her unorthodox methods from the first session. Born in Melbourne, Keddie was dubbed the "Golden Girl of Australian Televison" in 2014. She has recently appeared in the Netflix mini-series Stateless alongside Cate Blanchett.

Grace Van Patten as Zoe Marconi

Twenty-year-old Zoe came to Tranquillum House with her parents to heal from the death of her twin brother, Zach, three years prior. The retreat is a rough time for the whole family, as it takes place during what would be Zach's 21st birthday. New York-native Van Patten got her start with small roles in HBO series The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. Recently she appeared in the indie film Good Posture and the Netflix series Maniac.

Regina Hall as Carmel

Carmel is a mother of four who recently divorced from her husband. Her sweet and agreeable nature is often interrupted by violent outbursts, hinting that there may be more to her past that she's revealing. Hall got her start in comedic acting in the Scary Movie franchise and The Best Man, and she's recently earned raves for her dramatic performances in the films Support the Girls and The Hate U Give. She currently stars in the Showtime dark comedy Black Monday.

Luke Evans as Lars

Lars is a mysterious guest who tries to sneak contraband, from sugary treats to a phone and Apple watch, into Tranquillum House. He has also recently broke up with his partner, though he's reluctant about Masha's methods. Best known among Disney kids (and adults) for playing Gaston in the live-action Beauty and the Beast, Evans has also appeared in the Fast and Furious franchise and The Hobbit franchise. He'll also play Gaston in an upcoming Disney+ series.

Samara Weaving as Jessica

Jessica is a social media influencer who hopes the retreat with help repair a rift in her marriage. She also has some baggage to work out regarding her self-esteem and image. Australian actor Weaving got her start on the star-vehicle soap opera Home and Away (other alums include Chris Hemsworth and Naomi Watts). She has starred in the excellent horror film Ready or Not (high key recommend); and has also appeared in the films Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri and Snake Eyes.

Melvin Gregg as Ben

Jessica's husband Ben shows up at the retreat in his beloved Lamborghini. But he's also a little aimless, and wonders what comes next for people who actually achieve wellness (honestly, same). Gregg became famous on the video platform Vine (RIP), where his comedy videos got him 7 million followers in three years. He's appeared in the series UnREAL, American Vandal, and Snowfall.

In HBO's hit 2020 show The Undoing, Hugh Grant stars opposite Nicole Kidman in the twist-filled murder mystery. Amid this tale of high-functioning dysfunctional marriage (written by David E. Kelley, who also helmed Big Little Lies, Kidman's last show-stopping foray into this very specific genre), it's only natural to wonder about the stars' IRL marriages. For the record, Kidman has been married to Keith Urban for nearly 15 years, and while Grant's romantic life has been a bit less consistent during that time period, he finally settled down to give married life a try in 2018. Here's a primer on Grant's relationship status, including the lowdown on his wife, Anna Eberstein.

Who is Hugh Grant's wife?

Anna Eberstein, 41, hails from Sweden and is the co-founder of Ace Slippers, a London-based Scandinavian sock company. She founded the company with her cousin in 2014 "with the aim to bring a more edgy style to the traditional Swedish slipper sock," according to the Ace Slippers website.

Prior to launching her own business, Eberstein earned her master's degree in economics from Sweden's Uppsala University. She went on to work as a promotions producer for marketing and sales at ESPN and masterminded corporate marketing campaigns as a freelance creative producer and director, according to information gathered from a now defunct LinkedIn page by People.

How long have Grant and Eberstein been together?

Though the notoriously private Grant has kept most of the details of his relationship with Eberstein under wraps, their history dates back to at least the beginning of 2012 when Eberstein gave birth to their first child together (and Grant's second), a son named John. Just a few months later, in Dec. 2012, Grant welcomed another son, Felix, with Tinglan Hong, who is also the mother of Grant's first child, a daughter named Tabitha born in Sept. 2011.

News of Grant and Eberstein's relationship didn't break until early 2014, when several news outlets discovered that Grant had been added to Eberstein's son's birth certificate sometime in 2013. By that time, however, the pair had separated, though Grant told a Swedish newspaper in Sept. 2014 that Eberstein and their child lived near him in London. "We are very good friends, and she's a very good mother," he said of Eberstein at the time.

Grant and Eberstein rekindled their romance shortly after, though, since they welcomed their second child together, a daughter, in Dec. 2015, and have been together ever since. They welcomed their third child together—Grant's fifth, for those keeping track at home—in early 2018, just a few months before tying the knot in a low-key civil ceremony on May 25, 2018. In an unexpected twist, the birth of the couple's third child was announced by Elizabeth Hurley, who dated Grant for over a decade in the late '80s and '90s; she accidentally let the news slip on a March 2018 episode of Watch What Happens Live.

What has Hugh Grant said about marriage?

Though the actor has been part of many high-profile romances throughout his decades in the spotlight, it wasn't until 2018, when he was 57 years old, that the "eternal bachelor" finally made marriage moves. He began hinting that he was looking to end his long-term bachelordom not long after getting back with Eberstein: In 2016, he discussed his reformed views of marriage with Howard Stern, saying, "I can see the lovely aspect if you marry exactly the right person, your best friend, and it's cozy and it's lovely," though he went on to add, "I think there's something unromantic about marriage...You're closing yourself off."

It wasn't long before he popped the question to Eberstein. In a 2019 interview, he admitted that his previously long-held beliefs that he didn't want a wife or children were "just plain wrong," and that he had "put [it] off too many decades," per Hello! magazine.

Grant also recently candidly responded to rumors about the reason he married Eberstein. Taking to Twitter in June 2021, the actor shared an image of Google search results that claimed, "Hugh Grant married Anna Eberstein for passport reasons." He set the record straight, writing, "No I didn’t @Internet. I married her because I love her." (And when questioned if he was spending time Googling himself or his wife, he revealed that a friend had sent him the screenshot.)

It's clear Grant and Eberstein have a playful relationship. In an interview with Seth Meyers in November 2020, Grant teased that his wife doesn't actually like any of the rom-coms he's most famous for from Noting Hill or Love Actually. "My wife is the man in our house, really. She likes violent films, gangster films while I'm sitting there watching Roman Holiday or The Sound of Music or something," he said per E.T. "So she's never liked those films I did in the past, which are all romance and stuff. But now she's starting to get a taste for [my work]."

He added that while his wife did enjoy The Undoing, she preferred other actors in the series over him. "She's in love with the murdered lady's husband, played by Ismael Cruz Cordova, and she's very in love with the cop, Edgar Ramírez's part," Grant said coyly.

Much like Nicole Kidman and David E. Kelley's last HBO vehicle, Big Little Lies, their drama The Undoing is based on a beloved book: Jean Hanff Korelitz's "You Should Have Known." The series is a looser adaptation of the source material than Big Little Lies was, but the characters of The Undoing are based on those in "You Should Have Known," and at least the first episode bears a strong resemblance to the book. Both book and series revolve around Grace and Jonathan, a therapist and pediatric oncologist, respectively, whose lives are torn apart by a terrible crime. Spoilers for episodes one to five The Undoing ahead, as well as spoilers for the book You Should Have Known.

Ahead, some of the most notable similarities and distinctions between The Undoing and its source material (which, I should note, is a great book in its own right, and well worth a read whether you're enjoying the series or not).

What's the same: The family unit of Grace, Jonathan, and Henry Sachs.

The central family of The Undoing bear the same names and many of the same traits as those in "You Should Have Known." There's Grace, a therapist born and bred in New York City, whose specializes in relationship therapy and considers it her duty to tell her clients when they're in prisons of their own making. Then we have Jonathan, a charming pediatric oncologist who's a loving husband to Grace and father to Henry. Henry, meanwhile, is a young violin student who goes to a private school in New York called Rearden, tuition of which is paid for by Grace's wealthy father.

But other characters in The Undoing—specifically Sylvia (Lily Rabe); Grace's other friends from Rearden; and Grace's father (Donald Sutherland)—are quite different from how they're portrayed in the book. For example, Grace's father is fairly meek and happily married to his second wife in the novel, whereas in the series he's a larger-than-life character who appears to be single. There are also multiple characters in the book that never make it to the movie, including Grace's former best friend, partly because the book is set at the beach house and the series is set in New York City.

What's different: The character of Elena.

This is a key difference. Jean Hanff Korelitz's version of Elena is called Malaga Alves, and she's considerably less young and beguiling than the HBO version. Malaga Alves seems similar to "Elena" in that she's also the mother to a young son and infant daughter, but Elena is a very different personality: Elena has agency, for one, whether Malaga never seems to. Malaga also doesn't display sexually provocative behavior around Grace—I'm talking about the gym and elevator scenes, to be clear, not the breastfeeding scene— that is shown in The Undoing.

There are a few likely reasons Malaga became Elena. First, Malaga has come under fire for being a Latinx stereotype. Secondly, this a gorgeous, glossy TV show, and Elena is a young, gorgeous, glossy woman who appears naked in literally her second scene; Malaga, meanwhile, is older and less overtly sexualized. Third, Malaga has only a small role in the book, and in the series it's immediately clear Elena is a key character.

What's the same: The violent death of Malaga/Elena.

Both the book and the film use the violent death of Malaga/Elena, the woman Jonathan has been having an affair with, as the catalyst for everything that happens thereafter. The way the character dies is slightly different—in the book, Malaga is stabbed to death, and in the series Elena dies from a blow to the head—but in both cases, she is violently killed one evening, and her body is discovered by her young son the next morning.

What's different: Who killed Elena.

The series poses the question: Who murdered Elena? Was it Jonathan, or someone else? The book poses no such question. It's clear early on in the novel that Jonathan murdered Malaga/Elena, and by the end of the book he's confessed to it in a letter to Grace. He's also on the run for almost all of the novel, which is a nod to his guilt. (At the very end, he's captured abroad and extradited back to the United States.) The book essentially culminates in the conclusion that Jonathan is a sociopath.

The series, however, takes a very different approach, hinting that Jonathan may be innocent. It points fingers at Elena's husband, Fernando Alves (Ismael Cruz Córdova), who is a much bigger character than he is in the novel—and later, the series hints that Grace or Henry could be responsible. This is not the case in the novel: Fernando is only mentioned when detectives tell Grace that he has a rock-solid alibi for the night of his wife's murder—and because the novel is told from Grace's perspective, it's clear that she isn't the killer. Nobody ever suspects Henry to be the culprit.

Another character that simply doesn't exist in the book is defense attorney Haley Fitzgerald (Noma Dumezweni). The Jonathan of the book has no defense attorney, because there's no trial, because Jonathan is fleeing capture until the very end of the book.

Direct Susanne Bier tells Marie Claire: "It was always going to be Jonathan who killed Elena...Although the series uses the book [as inspiration] for the first two episodes, it does use the book as a kind of conceptual framework. That whole notion to 'regulate the truth,' to massage the truth into what we want it to be, is such a big important issue that we all felt we were doing a really fun and really entertaining whodunit twist and turn but at the core of it was that [book's philosophy]."

What's the same: The story about Jonathan, the dog, and his sibling.

Something that seems innocuous at first but later reveals itself to be telling in the book: Jonathan's aversion to dogs. In "You Should Have Known," Jonathan won't let Henry get a dog, because his childhood dog escaped while on Jonathan's watch and the event turned Jonathan's family against him.

This same story is told in the series: Grace shares with her son that Jonathan was shunned by his family after the death of their beloved dog. But when Grace eventually speaks to Jonathan's mother, she is told a very different story. It wasn't a dog, his mom reveals. It was a sister, and Jonathan was responsible for her death.

This is true of the novel, too, with some slight differences. It was a brother in the novel, one who was left in his brother's care when he had the flu. Jonathan, the book suggests, shut his brother out in the cold and left him to get sicker and sicker; by the time the family got home, there was nothing they could have done.

What's different: Grace's self-help book.

In "You Should Have Known," the title is a reference to the self-help book Grace is writing. This is one of the central conceits of the book: That Grace, a woman writing a self-help book specifically about how "you should have known" the core traits of your partner before you committed to them, finds herself in her current situation. The Grace of the book lives by central tenet of the self-help book she's writing: That before you marry a person, you know their worst traits, and you know what you're getting into—even if you convince yourself later that you didn't.

The self-help book is entirely left out of the series. Though Grace of the series has the same profession and displays a "you should have known"-esque attitude to bad relationships, there is no book.

What's the same: The escape to Grace's beach house.

In both the book and the series, Grace and Henry flee to her family's house upstate after the New York media gets hold of the story. In the book, they stay there for good; Grace reconnects with an old, beloved friend; her dad comes to visit; Henry loves his new school; and there's a suggestion that Grace finds a new love.

In the series, they're back in New York City within the episode.

What's different: Jonathan is not British.

There's no great mystery as to why this change was made. Jonathan of the book is American, and was born and raised just a couple of hours away from Grace.

In the series, of course, Jonathan is played by Hugh Grant. While I have no doubt that Hugh Grant could do an American accent, I gotta say that seeing Hugh Grant do an American accent and try to pass it off as normal would be...a major distraction. It makes far more sense for Jonathan of the series to be British and to have settled in New York.

With the series finale of HBO's psychological thriller, The Undoing, behind us, we're already preparing for the major withdrawals that will surely set in after we can no longer dive headfirst into the lives of the Fraser family every Sunday evening. Sure, the limited series is billed as an all-encompassing exploration of a single murder mystery and its effects on everyone involved, but let's be real—what wouldn't you trade for a season two of this Nicole Kidman- and Hugh Grant-filled prestige drama?

Though it may seem premature to start trying to manifest a second season of The Undoing into existence since, after all, we are still digesting how the first season ended, it is a truth universally acknowledged that anything Kidman touches at HBO turns to gold. It's safe to assume, then, that a continuation of Grace and Jonathan Fraser's story would be just as Emmy-worthy as this first set of episodes. While we wait for these dreams to come to fruition, here's everything we know so far about a potential season two of The Undoing.

Has The Undoing been renewed for a second season?

Not yet. For now, the show is sticking to its "limited series" designation and playing coy about whether the Undoing-verse will expand beyond the currently planned six episodes. That said, the installments that have been released so far have already been ultra-successful for HBO, with Deadline reporting increasingly higher ratings for each episode and record-breaking viewership numbers outside the U.S. It wouldn't be completely outside the realm of possibility for the network to further capitalize on this success by renewing The Undoing for a season two.

And while The Undoing is based on a single, sequel-less book, You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, that hasn't stopped HBO before. Big Little Lies, for example, which shares Kidman and creator, writer, and executive producer David E. Kelley with The Undoing, also covered all of its literary inspiration in a single season, but still kept viewers hooked with an equally intense season two and, in fact, might even be extended into a third season if Kidman gets her way.

Have the cast and crew weighed in?

Though Kelley has kept his lips zipped about the possibility of a second season of The Undoing, one very important member of the crew did recently hint that the Fraser fam could reappear on TV screens at some point down the line. In a post-finale interview with us, Susanne Bier, who directed all six episodes of the first season, mused on a potential follow-up.

"I would love for David [Kelley] to write a season 2," Bier told Marie Claire. "But, as of now, there are no plans, no nothing of a season 2. There might never be any plans [for] it. I think it would be so much fun to do a season 2, but right now it's just wishful thinking."

But both Kidman and Grant seem less into the idea of continuing the series, with Kidman even praising the show as cinematic because of its succinct six-episode arc. "It's not like a drama series where you're not quite sure how they're going to evolve and you have a next season," Kidman previously told EW. "That's why I say it's like cinema, because you have a beginning, middle, and end."

And Grant even told Vulture that he and Bier decided to tweak the finale episode to make it crystal clear who was responsible for the death of Elena, thus ensuring there would be no loose ends that needed tying up in followup seasons.

What would The Undoing season two be about?

Because the first season of the show already diverges quite a bit from its source material, it's really anyone's guess what a new set of episodes would cover. Looking again at Big Little Lies—which resembles The Undoing not only in its cast and crew but also in its subject matter, with a murder investigation and a complicated marriage at its center—after wrapping up the investigation in the first season, a second season might shift its focus instead to even deeper explorations of each character as they deal with the ramifications of the original crime. Plus, maybe Meryl Streep would pop up here, too!

Then again, in an interview with Oprah Mag, Bier advised against using BLL as a road map for The Undoing's future. "I feel that The Undoing is very different. It has a different temperature. It has a different engine. I think David always intended for it to be very different, as did Nicole," she said. (Don't worry—I'm sure they can still find a new part for Meryl!)

When would season two of The Undoing premiere?

Based on my super-scientific analysis of the first season's (COVID-delayed) production and release timeline and past HBO renewal announcements, likely in the late winter or early spring of 2023.

HBO announced it had ordered the first season of The Undoing in March 2018, and filming took place across New York state in mid-2019. Though the show was set to premiere in May of this year, it was bumped to late October due to the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, Big Little Lies, which was also expected to be only one season, was renewed in Dec. 2017, eight months after the first season concluded; the second season began production the following March and debuted in June 2019.

If these patterns hold true, we could reasonably expect a renewal announcement for The Undoing in July 2021, with production starting within the next year and the episodes finally hitting HBO sometime in the first few months of 2023. Fortunately, in the meantime, we'll have plenty of other Kidman-led book adaptations to keep us occupied: She's currently working with Kelley yet again on a Hulu version of Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty's Nine Perfect Strangers, due in 2021, and also recently signed on to produce an Amazon adaptation of A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight.

• Speaking exclusively to Entertainment Weekly, Big Little Lies stars Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman addressed the idea that season 2 director Andrea Arnold lost creative control. 
• According to them, it was a collaborative environment and the rumors are misinformation.
• This season really topped season 1 in terms of drama and epic moments.

Two of the Monterey Five have SPOKEN! Reports have been circulating recently there was off-screen drama to match the on-screen drama on season 2 of Big Little Lies—specifically that Andrea Arnold, who was the director for season 2, allegedly lost creative control to Jean-Marc Vallée, season 1 director. But in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, stars Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon are refuting that. 

Speaking about Andrea as a director in general, Nicole said, "I think she did beautiful work. There is the same vocabulary cinematically but the performances are mined differently and you really feel that." Reese added, "Everything was discussed as a creative group and entity. The thing that was confusing to me was that anybody would say people took over because it was always a very creative process."

The two actresses added on to what HBO executive Casey Bloys had said, which was that there was a lot of misinformation around Andrea and that the director doesn't have final creative control of a project anyways. According to Reese, "In our minds, there is no controversy. We just love the show. We had such a great time doing it. There was a lot of misinformation and no credited sources on any of the information. This was an incredibly collaborative process for all of us and the idea that anyone was mistreated and not communicated with is completely not true."

We also got a little insight into a potential season 3—namely, that the cast and crew work as a group, so that's how they'll decide. (Soooo that's not a no! I WILL TAKE IT.)

Last week, Reese also took to social media to refute rumblings of issues on set, saying that "every single cast member, location scout, camera operator, teamster, film editor, makeup artist, caterer and prop master on our production...you have made my whole experience a dream come true."

So there you have it—apparently all the drama's on-screen, not off?

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So, uh, not to break anybody's heart on this lovely Monday morning, but Laura Dern may have just confirmed that a Big Little Lies season three truly might not be happening after all. Last night, after the season two finale, Reese Witherspoon posted a behind-the-scenes photo of her on-screen family during the (very unexpected) scene where Madeline and Ed renewed their vows. She captioned the photo, "Madeline & Ed 💕Abigail & Chloe 💕#biglittlelies."

No big deal, right? Well, then Laura Dern wrote a sweet comment on the post, which may or may not have revealed the fate of BLL. "Thank you, Reese, for giving us such deep hope in pure love with this story and this ending."

This ending. She could have just said this story. She could also, you know, just be trolling us all, but the comment seems too pure that even Renata would be appalled at the level of trolling taking place.

All I have to say is I will not not witness Gordon rot in jail while Amabella saves the world from climate change. Please, for the love of god, HBO, give us a season three.

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So the second season of Big Little Lies has come to a dramatic end (worry not, latecomers: this is a spoiler-free zone), and once again we're bereft of the Monterey Five for the considerable future. But Nicole Kidman might just have given us hope—speaking to News Corp Australia, as Australia's Daily Telegraph reports, she said, "I think we would love to do a season three because there is certainly ideas." With one caveat: "we would not do it without all of the same people involved," she said, "even the kids." Thank you, Nicole! I'm choosing to interpret this as fact, and ignore all other suggestions to the contrary.

If we really must address said suggestions, however: Nicole's comments contradict existing statements by the people behind the scenes, including Casey Bloys, HBO's programming president. Back in 2018, he told the Hollywood Reporter, "Everybody involved is so busy that it's hard to imagine aligning everybody's schedule again. The fact that we were able to get season two together is a small miracle. Could we do it again? Who knows?! It's a great group. They love working together and they're really fun to work with. But everybody is really busy. So let's see."

Speaking to TV Line earlier this year, Casey stuck to his earlier comments. "The reality is, they are some of the busiest actresses working in Hollywood," he said. "Look, if they all came to me and said, 'We worked out all of our schedules!'—then sure," he added. "But I just don’t think it’s realistic."

And then there's writer and executive producer David E. Kelley, who told E! News at the premiere of the second season of Big Little Lies, "We wrote season two as if this were the end." Say what you like, writers and presidents and other important figures! Nicole Kidman has spoken!

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If you've been watching Big Little Lies season two since it premiered over a month ago, you're probably a) going to think about Meryl Streep's scream for the rest of your life, b) contemplate why HBO is scamming us out of those last 15 precious minutes (the episodes are only 45 minutes long), and c) wonder how many episodes we'll get to enjoy the "Monterey five" this season.

Unfortunately, Big Little Lies season two will only have seven episodes, just like last season. Therefore, its season two finale will take place this Sunday, July 21, 2019. As for what to expect in each episode, it's a total gamble, but we can get some tiny clues based on their titles. Episode one was called, "What Have They Done?" Episode two is titled, "Tell-Tale Hearts," episode three is called, "The End of the World," episode four is "She Knows," episode five is "Kill Me," episode six is "The Bad Mother," and episode seven is called, "I Want to Know."

If you haven't caught up yet and don't have a TV, you can stream both season one and season two on HBO Go. To do this, either sign up for a subscription (it costs $14.99 per month), or submit the login information from a friend or family member's cable provider and watch for free. It doesn't cost them any additional money to give you their login, so they have no excuse not to!

Episodes are available every Sunday at 9 p.m. EST with no commercials (!), so you can rewind and fast forward at your convenience. No word yet on whether or not there will be a third season (I know, I know), but here's hoping. In the meantime, check out this insane fan theory about Corey and Perry being brothers.

WATCH BIG LITTLE LIES

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Reese Witherspoon's Instagram is a gift, friends, and if you're not currently following her, consider this my gift to you. Last week, she posted an exceptional throwback photo of herself and Selma Blair sometime in the 90s. She posts the exact memes your fun aunt probably owns in fridge magnet form (see: Monday Lisa). And Tuesday, she shared a behind-the-scenes snap of the Big Little Lies cast, featuring one Meryl Streep, Serious Actress, hilariously ruining the photo.

In the photo, Zoë Kravitz, Meryl, Laura Dern, Reese and Nicole Kidman are presumably posing for press shots (note the stylist carefully positioning Nicole/Celeste's hair). Zoë, Laura, Reese and Nicole are diligently doing their jobs, looking solemnly into the camera—and then there's Meryl, sporting the same wide-eyed, open-mouthed grin your fun aunt adopts in selfies with a bottle of prosecco. Honestly, just drink in the photo. Thank you, Meryl. Thank you, Reese. My phone wallpaper was overdue an update.

On her Instagram story, meanwhile, Reese shared a quote from her A Wrinkle in Time co-star Mindy Kaling's book Why Not Me? "People's reaction to me is sometimes 'Uch, I just don't like her. I hate how she thinks she is so great'," the book reads. "But it's not that I think I'm so great. I just don't hate myself...And the scary thing I have noticed is that some people really feel uncomfortable around women who don't hate themselves. So that's why you need to be a little bit brave."

Sounds like Reese, like the rest of us, has a whole lot of admiration for Mindy. Just to recap: as IndieWire reports, Mindy recently wrote and co-starred in Late Night, is working on a Netflix series about "the complicated life of a modern-day first generation Indian American teenage girl, inspired by Kaling’s own childhood," will write and star in a wedding comedy movie set in the U.S. and India, and is also adapting Four Weddings and a Funeral for Hulu. How could Reese—or anyone—not be inspired?

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Big Little Lies is officially back and, so far, just as delightfully dramatic as the first season. In addition to Reese Witherspoon's Madeline, Zoe Kravitz's Bonnie, Nicole Kidman's Celeste, Laura Dern's Renata, and Shailene Woodley's Jane—who, are now known as the Monterey 5 thanks to the events that lead to the death of Celeste's husband, Perry (played by Alexander Skarsgård)—this second season has given us the gift of Meryl Streep. And, if you watched tonight's premiere, you know that she is indeed a GIFT.

Going into tonight, we knew Meryl's character, Mary Louise (Perry's mother and Nicole Kidman's mother-in-law), was going to be a doozy, because Meryl. But the Oscar winner showed in the first 10 seconds of the opening scene of season 2 that she's not here to play: She's here for an Emmy. Fast-forward to Queen Meryl perfectly dressing down chipper Reese with her cutting "You're very short...I don't mean it in a negative way...maybe I do...I find little people to be untrustworthy," and then that scream. Was there anything more terrifying than that SCREAM!?

That scream deserves an Oscar. Honestly, the two little boys who play Nicole Kidman's sons deserve an Oscar or a brownie or an Xbox or something for not falling out of their chairs or morphing into that half-blue terror emoji on camera because that scream was unhinged and absolutely zero of us are worthy. I need to know how many takes they did of that scene. I'm still so uncomfortable.

Anyway, I wasn't the only one who thought Meryl stole the show: Twitter LOVED the actress's performance and, well, based on Twitter's reaction, I'm worried about what will happen if this woman doesn't get an Emmy (answer: It's probably that scream!!!!). Please enjoy the best of the Merylfest below:

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Spoiler alert for season two of Big Little Lies episode 5. We had the scream. Then it was the slap. But apparently both of those pale in comparison to the show's rumored "ice cream" scene, which was supposed to be the most iconic Big Little Lies season 2 moment of them all. But yesterday's episode came and went, and the big moment was nowhere to be found. Fans were, unsurprisingly, totally irritated, but Meryl Streep gave fans the scoop (terrible pun totally intended, sorry) about what happened. 

First, here's what I'm talking about in case the words "ice cream throw" means nothing to you. Allll the way back in August 2018, photos were snapped of Reese Witherspoon (who plays Madeline) hurling—hurling—a cone of ice cream at the back of Meryl Streep's head. Fans were delighted to see the two acting titans face off against each other. But then, in May, Meryl (who plays Mary Louise) broke all of our hearts, telling Entertainment Tonight, "[Reese] just told me it's not in the show!" But, she added, "It's [going to be] in the DVD extras." Phew. So, we can all see the frozen dairy fight, just not yet. Maybe the producers felt like they had enough big moments already? And that Madeline and Mary Louise mattered less than the Celeste vs. Mary Louise custody battle? 

Here are the original pics of Reese and Meryl:

And fans were not happy, to say the least, when they realized.

It's gonna be ok...eventually.

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• On last night's Big Little Lies, Nicole Kidman's character slapped Meryl Streep's character, and the whole scene has fans losing their minds.
• The reactions ranged from deliriously happy to speechless, but fans could all agree that both actresses did the most amazing job ever.
• In case you forgot, before "the slap" came "the scream," and people are saying Meryl should win an Emmy just for that.

Big Little Lies' second and final season is fully giving us some of summer's must-watch television. Reviews of this season have been mixed, but everyone can absolutely agree on the following: Meryl Streep is absolutely the best thing to happen to the show. And last night's episode was no exception, because Nicole Kidman's character Celeste straight up slaps Meryl's character Mary Louise.

Here's how it went down. Mary Louis makes an insanely incendiary comment about not believing Jane (Shailene Woodley) is a survivor of her son's assault, insinuating Celeste wasn't giving Perry (Alexander Skarsgård) what he needed at home. Celeste straight up cracks her across the face (smacking off her glasses in the process—daaaaamn), and Mary Louise barely bats an eye. "What shall we call that? Foreplay?" she asks, then flounces off.

Here's the scene (it's towards the end, if you want to skip through):

And here are just a few of the fans losing their minds over the epicness.

Thank you, HBO.

I didn't know I needed this right now, but I absolutely did.

Fans just could not even.

Dear lord.

Amazing.

Comparisons to other iconic slaps.

Lovin' that Will and Grace tribute.

When in doubt, always go with RuPaul.

Even Dave Chappelle!

The crossover I now need in my life.

So many conflicting emotions.

All of them, simultaneously.

Just take a moment.

Guys, this is bad.

I fear for the Monterey Five.

Can the show get any crazier? Probably. 

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Before the age of streaming, summer was a TV dead zone. All your faves were on a break, replaced by occasionally great, usually bizarre shows from networks that didn't want to risk airing them in spring or fall. But that's all changed now, since Netflix and Hulu, and premium networks like HBO, have lifted all boats, as the upcoming TV shows of summer 2019 perfectly demonstrate. Already, we're seeing exciting Spanish-language comedies with SNL pedigrees (Los Espookys), the return of groundbreaking, women-led series (Big Little Lies, G.L.O.W.), and even a surprising follow-up season to one of the most interesting shows I've seen in ages (Fleabag)

So, if you're looking for a reason to sit inside on a sunny day (hey, no judgment here), here are the 2019 summer shows you're going to want to keep an eye out for. We'll keep updating as more info becomes available.

May

What Is It?

This Hulu miniseries takes on the classic 1961 novel by Joseph Heller, and stars George Clooney, Christopher Abbott, Kyle Chandler, and Hugh Laurie as soldiers in WWII. While Mike Nichols’ 1970 movie starring Alan Arkin tackled a lot of the absurdism of the original novel, this adaptation seems darker and more visceral about the realities of war that plagued main character Yossarian (played here by Abbott).

Fleabag (May 17) - Amazon

What Is It?

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s genius, painfully funny, and pitch-black comedy-of-sorts returns for a long-awaited second season that was first announced back in 2017. This time around, our unnamed main character (played by Waller-Bridge herself) seems to be getting help for her issues from a therapist (Fiona Shaw), but still can’t help herself from being into a hot priest (Andrew Scott) who shows her attention. Classic.

June

What Is It?

If you’ve made it through the first two seasons of Hulu’s disturbingly poignant Margaret Atwood adaptation, then you’ve been waiting to see just when June and the other women are going to take Gilead down. The wait might be over in season three.

Black Mirror (Season 5, June 5) - Netflix

What Is It?

The anthology series about what happens when technology takes over our lives has haunted us for years, and the follow-up to 2018's interactive Bandersnatch episode will include three new episodes (one of which stars Miley Cyrus). Tune in before someone inevitably spoils the twists for you.

Tales of the City (June 7) - Netflix

What Is It?

Laura Linney returns to this limited series on which she originally starred back in 1993. Set in San Francisco and based on the stories by Armistead Maupin, the story centers around a home filled with every type of relationship imaginable. It was a revolutionary look at queer lives when the book came out in the 1970s, and with Orange is the New Black writer Lauren Morelli as the head writer this time around, it should be thoughtful and modern.

Big Little Lies (Season 2, June 9) - HBO

What Is It?

The smash-hit HBO series about a group of well-to-do moms and a murder, and based off the bestselling book by Liane Moriarty, returns for a second season, and this time around it won’t be based on a novel’s source material.

The gang is all back, plus the inclusion of Meryl Streep in a major new role. Could this cast get any more stacked?

Los Espookys (June 14) - HBO

What Is It?

Set in a “dreamy” version of present-day Mexico City, this show—produced by Fred Armisen, Lorne Michaels, and the show’s stars, the comedians Julio Torres and Ana Fabrega—is a Spanish-language comedy about a group of friends who love horror movies and decide to turn their morbid interest into a “peculiar business.” Count us in.

Euphoria (June 16) - HBO

What Is It?

Zendaya stars (and Drake executive produces) this trippy-looking drama about teenagers dealing with typical teenage stuff (sex, drugs) in nontypical ways.

Grand Hotel (June 17) - ABC

What Is It?

Eva Longoria executive-produced this English remake of a mega-popular Spanish show, which follows the sexy scandals of a hotel-owning family on Miami Beach.

July

What Is It?

The third season of Stranger Things drops smack-dab in the middle of summer, and though we probably won’t know exactly what it’s about until we watch it, it’s always reliably freaky, funny, and surprising—the perfect thing to binge-watch when it’s too hot to go outside, no?

Sweetbitter (Season 2, July 14) - Starz

What Is It?

This juicy drama about life in the high-end New York City restaurant biz was an addictive watch in its first season, and looks to be equally delectable in its second.

August

What Is It?

The brilliant ensemble Netflix series about the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling has spent two seasons observing the wrestlers and their not-that-fearless leader Sam (Marc Maron) struggle to be taken even a little bit seriously. But we last left the gang about to board a bus for a major opportunity in las Vegas, so maybe Season 3 will see them finally get the recognition they deserve? Here’s hoping, anyway.

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*This post contains spoilers for Big Little Lies season two.*

Sound the alarms: After an *extremely* long wait and much anticipation, HBO has confirmed Big Little Lies' second season is officially going ahead. Here's what we know so far about season two of the HBO hit. This post will continue to be updated, so check back for the latest news and sneak peeks.

Spoilers

You now that it’s nearly time for a new season to drop when the cast start accidentally blabbing huge spoilers that they were supposed to keep a secret. God bless Nicole Kidman from all of us fans who have zero patience and are terrible at waiting to find out the storylines as they play out, because the actress just accidentally spilled a MAJOR plot twist for Big Little Lies season 2.

Cast your mind back to the end of season 1 and you’ll remember that Bonnie (played by Zoe Kravitz) pushed Perry (Alexander Skarsgård) down the stairs to his death. Stone cold dead. Yep, completely dead. Dead as a dodo. DEAD… right?

During a recent cast panel held by The Wing Soho, Nicole and her co-star and producer Reese Witherspoon were discussing their love for Skarsgård and how amazing it had been to work alongside him. Lovely, until Nicole went on to say: "He was the most incredible acting partner, and then he came back for season 2…"

The second she spilled, Reese burst into giggles and urged her to “Stop talking!”

Grabbing a spade to keep digging that hole, Nicole added: "He has a little bit of a part in the sense of…the basis of…okay, I’ll be quiet. He didn’t abandon us. We’ll put it that way.”

The Official Trailer Has Arrived

There’s no going back now. Finally, an official trailer has landed for the second season of Big Little Lies, and it’s every bit as dark as you’d hoped. Oh, and there’s some intense action from newest cast member Meryl Streep which, it goes without saying, is the cherry on top of the excitement. The moment that she sharply tells Reese Witherspoon (Madeline) that she’s sure she won’t “get the truth” proves that this already brilliant show is only going to get better.

Hear Shailene Woodley tell the Monterey Five how they “have scarlet letters on [their] backs," and experience the chills with the trailer below:

Plus, that all-important air date–season 2 will premiere on June 9.

In May, HBO released another trailer and Meryl, predictably, steals it as her character questions her son's death (a line of inquiry that could spell trouble for, you know, literally everyone else on the show). Behold:

New Photos!

This winter, we've gotten a handful of previews for what to expect from the much-anticipated second season of the show. We've got photos!

And during the Golden Globes, we got a trailer as well!

Counting. Down. The. Days. Which brings me to...

Release Date

The second season is set to have seven episodes, and will premiere in June of 2019. Fans were hoping for earlier, but when HBO programming chief Casey Bloys was asked if the second season might air in 2018, he gave a definitive no. "No. They start shooting in the spring. It's not going to air in 2018."

Cast

All of the season one cast is expected to return. However, there *is* going to be a bit of a changeup: The show is getting a new director, Andrea Arnold, replacing season one director Jean-Marc Vallée. Vallée will remain an executive producer.

Reese Witherspoon commented on the exciting news: “I’m thrilled to be bringing back this talented team of artists. It gives us the opportunity to delve deeper into the lives of these intriguing and intricate Monterey families and bring more of their stories back to the audience who embraced and championed them," she said. "I’m beyond excited to be working with talented and acclaimed director Andrea Arnold, who will be at the helm. Andrea’s unique storytelling style will be a welcome addition to the film-making team.”

The most notable addition to the cast is, of course, Meryl Streep. The Oscar-winner and all-around goddess will play Perry's mom—who understandably has a lot of questions about her son's death.

Filming

Auditions for new characters reportedly took place in December and production kicked off in March 2018—in Monterey, naturally.

On April 5, Nicole Kidman posted on Instagram that filming had officially begun and included a picture of herself and Meryl Streep on set.

Plot

Not much is known about the plot of Big Little Lies' second season. The first season was based on a book, but since the book has no sequel, fans were left wondering where the story would go next. BLL author Liane Moriarty reportedly wrote the story for the show's second season, so, whatever is in store, we can count on the same dark and mysterious tone.

HBO's official log line for season two is: "The subversive, darkly comedic drama Big Little Lies will explore the malignancy of lies, the durability of friendships, the fragility of marriage and, of course, the vicious ferocity of sound parenting. Relationships will fray, loyalties will erode…the potential for emotional and bodily injury shall loom."

As for the possibility of a third season, Bloys says it all depends on the very busy cast's schedules.

"Everybody involved is so busy that it's hard to imagine aligning everybody's schedule again," he said. "The fact that we were able to get season two together is a small miracle. Could we do it again? Who knows?! It's a great group. They love working together and they're really fun to work with. But everybody is really busy. So let's see."

Big Little Lies season 2 will premiere on June 9.

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Last night, Shailene Woodley joined the cast of Big Little Lies to celebrate season 2 of the show in New York City. For the special occasion, Woodley chose a black Dior dress that featured a bodysuit underneath a layer of tulle and mesh material. The sheer dress was reminiscent of one Bella Hadid wore recently, though Woodley had long sleeves with a dotted print. The actress paired the dress with Christian Louboutin black pumps.

In short, she looked amazing. The self-proclaimed "hippie" definitely stole the spotlight on the red carpet and looked like a glamorous Hollywood movie star. Her costar Laura Dern also seemed to pick up on the sheer memo, opting for a see-through blouse underneath a white blazer. The duo stood arm in arm with the rest of the BLL cast while smiling and posing for the cameras. (So cute!)

At one point, Woodley even took off her black heels to dance inside:

Season 2 of Big Little Lies will premiere on HBO June 9 and here's what to expect (pssst: Meryl Streep!!).

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The second season of Big Little Lies is almost back, and I can't wait to see what's about to go down in Monterey. At the end of last season the women all came together, someone close to them died, and their quaint little town was turned upside-down. I'm living for the drama, but also for Meryl. The icon herself is joining the cast for the second season, and it can't be June 9 soon enough. To hold us over for the last few weeks, I dug around to see who the cast spends time with when they aren't filming. Spoiler: these badass women and men work hard and love even harder.

Kidman is married to country singer Keith Urban. They met at the 2005 at the G'Day USA gala in Los Angeles, and four months later he called. Urban said he "had things to take care of" before he could ask Nicole out. The pair have now been married for 12 years. Kidman credits their success to focusing on the "us". “I think it’s knowing that you have to keep contributing to what we call the ‘us.’ You go, ‘Does this work for us?’" she shared with People. Together they share two daughters, Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret. And yes, they really are that nauseatingly cute IRL.

Witherspoon is married to Hollywood agent Jim Toth. The pair met at a party where he helped Reese with a drunken admirer. He literally saved her from a drunk guy hitting on her and getting in her face. I mean, hero?!? The pair began dating in January of 2010. Reese shared with Elle how the pair fell in love. “Jim said ‘I’m gonna show you every day what a good partner is, what a good person is. I'm going to take care of you. I'm gonna do this so much that you're gonna get used to it. ’I was like ‘What are you talking about?’ I’ve never had anybody like that in my life.”

The two married in March of 2011. Jim is a constant support for Reese. "I get a lot of support from my husband,” she told Marie Claire. “He cares deeply about equality and always tells me,'Why wouldn’t you call the person in charge of a company and have a personal relationship with them?' He’s encouraged me to be outspoken.”

On September 27, 2012 they welcomed a son, Tennessee James Toth. Tennessee is Witherspoon’s third child; she also has daughter Ava and son Deacon from her previous marriage to Ryan Philippe.

The actress currently has no official romantic ties. She was linked to rugby player Ben Volavola starting in 2017, but their status is currently unknown. The pair went IG official in 2018 and he attended a few fashion shows together.

Recently, Woodley has been vocal about how hard it is to date. She shared her love of sex in a recent InStyle interview. "I mean, I love sex. I love the power of emotional connection via physicality. Who doesn’t? But now I’m only interested in those unexpected impactful connections." Still, the actress believes "love is scary".

Streep and sculptor Don Gummer met in March of 1978. Streep was mourning the death of her boyfriend John Cazale when she leaned on Gummer, a friend of her brother's, for support. They dated six months before their September garden wedding, according to People.

Together they have four children. Musician Henry Wolfe, 36, actresses Mamie, 32, Grace, 29, and model Louisa, 24.

Meryl thanked Don in her 2012 acceptance speech for Best Actress in Iron Lady. “First I’m going to thank Don, because when you thank your husband at the end of the speech they play him out with the music,” she said. “And I want him to know that everything I value most in our lives you’ve given me.”

Kravitz is engaged to fellow actor Karl Glusman. Introduced by mutual friends, they began dating in 2016.

Zoë announced their engagement in October 2018 to Rolling Stone. “Oh yeah, I’m engaged,” she shared to her interviewer. The pair had been secretly engaged since February.

Dern typically keeps her love life under wraps. She publicly dated ex-husband Ben Harper for close to a decade, and they have two children, Ellery and Jaya.

Most recently, Dern has been tied to former NBA player Baron Davis. The pair made waves in December of 2017 with some adorable PDA pics. Though rarely seen out in public, Laura mentions her boyfriend in interviews.

The Swedish hottie played husband to Kidman on BLL. You were captivated by his intense demeanor and also completely terrified of him. Things IRL definitely move at a different pace for the Skarsgård brother.

The actor has been linked to designer Alexa Chung in recent years. The pair has been on-and-off again since 2015. In the past few months Skarsgård has made it clear he's currently single and looking for a wife. A British wife, according to an interview with The Times. “From a very early age, I’ve always thought I’ll end up with a Brit. There’s something about the mentality. Brits have a sensibility that I respond to. They make fun of themselves in a way that I really appreciate.”

You know him from the show as Reese's husband Ed. When he isn't acting, he's a very committed father and husband. Scott has been married to Naomi Sablan since 2005. His wife also works in Hollywood as a producer. Together the couple has two children. Son, Graham, and daughter Frankie.

The BLL resident zaddy is currently playing the field. The actor was in a committed relationship with Anne Heche for ten years. Us Weekly reported they were splitting in 2018. The pair were never married, and share son Atlas.

You may remember him as Renata's calm husband. He's just as loyal to his family off-screen. The actor is married to Francia Demise. Together, they have three children: Twins Eloise and Iris were born in 1996 and daughter Miranda two years later in 1998.

Sullivan plays character Oran in Monterey, and in real life married to David Monahan. The two have been together for close to two decades. Together, they're fathers to son Cooper. Cooper and dads went viral after appearing in a Campbell’s commercial. The ad led to the pair being People’s Sexiest Pitchmen Alive in 2015.

You may remember him as Reese’s sexy BLL hookup. (We're all still thinking about it.) The actor is married to Anna Marcea. The pair met studying at London’s Drama Center. Married in 2003, they welcomed a son Kilian in 2016. Cabrera refers to his son as his "pride and joy".

• Fans and would-be fans of HBO's Big Little Lies can stream the first season of the Emmy-winning series for free this weekend to catch up or refresh their memories ahead of the show's season season. 
• HBO is letting viewers stream the first season of Big Little Lies for free on its YouTube channel this weekend only. 
• Season 2 of Big Little Lies premieres on HBO on June 9. 

Sometimes, the streaming gods smile down on us, like right now for instance. This weekend only, HBO has decided to make Big Little Lies Season 1 available to stream totally for free on its YouTube channel. The Emmy-winning hit was originally intended to be a limited series, but was renewed for a second season thanks to its massive popularity (and the miraculous scheduling luck that allowed its all-star cast to return).

The free stream is available to all people of the internet, even those who don't have an HBO subscription. Of course, the free hit of Big Little Lies is clearly intended to get viewers hooked ahead of Season 2, which premieres on June 9 on HBO.

Big Little Lies stars Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoe Kravitz as a group of well-to-do California moms who have dark and twisty secrets. Meryl Streep is joining the cast for the second season as the mother of Nicole Kidman's late husband, whose death was central to the plot of Season 1.

Here's the Season 2 trailer:

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When Kathryn Newton was approached about returning to Big Little Lies for the HBO show’s second season, she was ecstatic. She was also torn. “I got offered Pokemon: Detective Pikachu and they were conflicting, schedule-wise,” she tells me. Newton desperately wanted to pay homage to the anime she’d loved—“I would get lost in it all day long”—but playing Abigail Carlson on the show’s first season, an adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s 2014 novel, was a dream come true.

Leave it to fairy godmother Reese Witherspoon, who plays Newton’s mom Madeline on Big Little Lies, to handle everything. Newton says that Witherspoon insisted she do both, and then personally put in a call to Universal Studios. Just like that, there were no more scheduling issues.

Though the incident proves Newton is protégé to one of Hollywood's most beloved stars, the 22-year-old isn’t new to the cinematic scene. She’s been acting since she was four, moved to L.A. from South Florida when she was 12, and took on her first big league fare in 2017, with roles in both Lady Bird and Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri—and, of course, the first season of Big Little Lies. (Her character, Abigail, infamously attempts to raise funds for Amnesty International by selling her virginity online—news that causes her mother to projectile vomit during a sit-down lunch.) But she’s used to keeping busy: Newton is also a lifelong golfer, and is considered by Golf Digest to be “the best golfer in Hollywood.”

Since there isn’t a second Big Little Lies book and the first season of the show wrapped up where the novel’s source material left off, how the second season will shape up is anyone’s guess—though that hasn’t stopped internet sleuths from speculating wildly. “I’m really not allowed to say anything,” Newton demurs when asked about her season two storyline, though she does reveal that it’s the darkest acting she’s ever done. “We have a take where [director Andrea Arnold] would play a sad song on repeat for, like, eight minutes, and would just roll the camera on me, like, bawling-crying,” she remembers. “I grew a lot.”

As for her megastar castmates—among them Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, and Shailene Woodley—Newton grew especially close to them during the filming of season two. For this, she also thanks Witherspoon. “I’m in a room with the biggest stars in Hollywood, and she’s the one who would invite me to dinner with them,” she says.

“We all love each other. I loved every minute of working on that show,” Newton reminisces, adding, “I hope they’re going to do a third season.”

In the meantime, fans are abuzz about the new season’s casting of Meryl Streep, who joins BLL as the mother of abusive husband Perry Wright, who—spoiler alert!—died in the first season. So what was it like to work alongside the most famously excellent actress of her generation? “I don’t know how you can begin to answer that,” laughs Newton. “I was like, Oh! This is why she’s the greatest.”

And what about that Detective Pikachu movie that Witherspoon helped her work into the schedule? In the film, which hits theaters May 10, Newton plays Lucy Stevens, who teams up with lead character Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) and his Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) to find Tim’s missing dad.

I ask the question that divided the internet: With Ryan Reynolds as the titular character, is the mouse detective kind of...hot? “Hot?” Newton responds incredulously. “Like, H-O-T?” Yes, hot. She starts laughing. “I totally see it,” she says. “I’m excited to hear what they say about my sidekick, Psyduck. I think he’s pretty handsome too, okay?”

This article originally appeared in the May 2019 issue of Marie Claire.

READ THE FULL ISSUE HERE

You know what makes every movie (or TV show of live stage play or anything that involves a human being delivering lines for an audience, presumably) better? If you said "Timothée Chalamet," then you are both correct and in good company. Laura Dern (who happens to be another great addition to any movie, TV show, live stage play, or other thing involving a person delivering lines to an audience) thinks so too.

The accomplished actress presented Chalamet with a the Spotlight Award at the 30th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Gala earlier this week and had literally nothing but amazing things to say about him backstage.

"We've just had an amazing experience working together on this film, Little Women. So we just finished before Christmas," Dern told ET Online, explaining how she and Chalamet met and bonded.

Dern and Chalamet are just two of the incredible actors appearing in Greta Gerwig's Little Women adaptation. The cast also includes Meryl Streep, Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, and Eliza Scanlen.

And, when asked if she would write Chalamet into her other big, highly-anticipated ensemble hit, HBO's Big Little Lies, which is returning for a second season, Dern was basically like "HELL YES."

Okay, here's what she actually said:

"I think we would be very happy to have him. He's amazing!"

But that paraphrases as "HELL YES," right?

Of course, it's not that far-fetched to imagine Chalamet appearing on Big Little Lies. There's already quite a bit of crossover in the casts.

"Meryl Streep, who is also in Little Women, is also in Big Little Lies. So she and I got to do two things in a row, which was a dream," Dern said.

Obsessed with Big Little Lies? Same. But there's watching (and re-watching) the series, and then there's living the series—minus all the drama. Turns out Monterey, the sleepy California town where HBO's award-winning show takes place, is a dream weekend getaway. At least, if your qualifications for a dream weekend getaway include gorgeous sunsets, lounging sea lions, incredible hiking trails, and delicious freshly caught fish.

And interestingly, Monterey is actually rather different from how it's depicted in the show. Yes, there are areas that are incredibly fancy—but overall this is a down-to-earth town that's quintessentially Californian. The people are warm and even the fanciest restaurants don't feel uptight. It's easy to see why this area has captivated visitors for generations, from John Steinbeck to Reese Witherspoon.

On that note, here's where to eat, sleep, and hang in my favorite California coastal city.

Where to Stay

There are a couple options to choose from, but I find myself booking the same place every single time I visit Monterey: Portola Hotel & Spa. Emphasis on "spa." Aside from access to great massages, the main draw of Portola is its proximity to...well, everything. The hotel is right smack in the middle of Monterey—a gorgeous walk to the Fisherman's Wharf, tons of restaurants and shops, and they have free parking. Because yep, I've officially reached the age where I get excited about things like free parking, don't @ me. (You're gonna want that car to do the iconic BLL opening credits drive across Bixby Bridge.)

Though Portola Hotel is a (very short 3 minute) drive to the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium and all that the equally famous Cannery Row has to offer, if your main reason for visiting the area is the marine sanctuary, might I recommend the especially upscale Clement? The hotel is so close to the water you can taste the salt in the air. And don't be surprised if you look out your window and see a whale breaching, 'cause these are the views you're getting:

Where to Eat and Drink

First things first, let's talk about Estéban. While it might seem like your average hotel restaurant on the surface, it is SO MUCH MORE. Estéban recently tapped Chef Gus Trejo to take the helm of their kitchen, and not to be supremely extra but he might be a genius? If I had to describe the food in one word it would be fresh. Each ingredient is sourced right from local farms, with Trejo picking his menu based on what look best and most abundant that day/week/hour.

But if you're going for Big Little Lies vibes (and we know you are), head over to Paluca Trattoria and dine al fresco on Fisherman's Wharf. Not only will you be visiting a filming location for BLL (it's where the characters frequently grab coffee!), you'll be dining on freshly caught seafood. And fun fact: I overheard the owner telling a group of tourists that while they never originally served coffee, they got so many requests after Big Little Lies that they had to install an espresso machine. Plus, you can't beat this view:

And speaking of views, shoutout to Schooner's—which has a massive wine list to match it's massive windows that let you gaze at whales, sea otters, and the full moon at night. Of course, if you get sick of that you can just stare at your food. That works too.

What to Do

The Monterey Bay Coastal Recreation Trail

This is a stunning 29-mile trail that goes from Lover's Point Park all the way down to the Aquarium. The entire trail is on the waterfront, meaning you're basically "working out" while gazing at the ocean, listening to the sound of crashing waves, and drinking coffee—because yep, there's a cafe right there.

The cast and crew of Big Little Lies have been spotted filming Season 2 around this area, and um, you can see why:

The Aquarium

Perhaps the most famous attraction in Monterey, the Aquarium is genuinely incredible—and it has a major Big Little Lies connection, thanks to Renata (Laura Dern's character) serving on its board. But if you didn't come to nerd-out over the series, come to nerd out over the jellyfish.

Lover’s Point Park

If you don't feel like walking one mile let alone the 29 miles of the recreation trail, you can always kayak on the bay, or have a picnic at Lover's Point Park. You know, like this one straight outta BLL:

Garrapata State Park and Beach and Bixby Bridge

You definitely need a car to get Garrapata State Park, but much like the rest of Monterey, it's magnificent—and will be pretty familiar to Big Little Lies fans. Many of the show's impressive cliff scenes were shot there, and the production even installed a new set of stairs just for the show.

Since you're already in the car, you might as well head a little farther down Highway 1 to the famous Bixby Bridge, which is frequently seen on BLL (in addition to it's prominent place in the opening credits sequence) and is just as stunning as it is terrifying. No truly, I almost passed out trying to take this not-that-good-because-I-was-physically-shaking picture, that's how high up we were:

Pssst: Another amazing car activity? The 17-mile drive in Pebble Beach. You have to pay $10.25 per vehicle, but there are no words for how exquisite it is. If you're incredibly fancy, spend a night at The Lodge at Pebble Beach or The Inn at Spanish Bay.

Fisherman's Wharf

Since you're eating a delicious meal at Paluca anyway, you might as well explore Fisherman's Wharf (it's fully of kitschy tourist shops and tasty clam chowder samples) and...go whale watching! Discovery Whale Watch has guaranteed sightings, which I was a little dubious about at first. But did I see a whale? Nope, I saw eight whales. Not to mention a fleet of seal lions and a mama otter cuddling with a baby otter.

Helpful Tips

1. Monterey gets COLD. Especially in the early mornings, when there's a hefty layer of chilly fog covering the bay. Bring layers, and lots of them, or you'll spend the entire time desperately clutching your coffee to warm your hands.

2. Reserve at least a solid three-hour chunk for the aquarium because it's truly mind-blowing. And speaking of reservations, there's so much to do in Monterey and its adjoining town of Pacific Grove that I highly recommend you make a schedule. This is a weekend guide after all, and lounging is great—but there's a lot to see, and some of it (like the bridge) is a drive away.

3. Fly into the Santa Barbara airport if you can. Why? Because even though it's further than San Jose, you can rent a car at the airport and drive up the recently re-opened Highway 1, which is famous for its staggering beauty and mind-boggling cliffs. Big Sur, anyone?

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We’ve long suspected it, but now it’s been entirely confirmed—Meryl Streep is officially projecting that B.D.E. The three-time Academy Award winner, like the rest of us, was totally hooked on the first series of Big Little Lies. But, unlike the rest of us, Streep dropped a casual email over to Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman after viewing, to let them know that she’d be arriving on set for filming of the second season. And THAT, ladies, is the attitude that we all need to channel at work going forwards.

It’s already been confirmed that Streep will appear as the mother-in-law of Celeste, played by Kidman, in the hugely anticipated second season of Big Little Lies, set to finally come to screens in 2019. But, for anyone who thought that landing such a legendary actress must have been a challenge for the show, Kidman has set the record straight. In fact, it was all down to Meryl.

Speaking to Variety about how Streep came to be involved in the hit HBO show, Kidman recalled the nonchalant email that she and Witherspoon received, the night after Big Little Lies scooped the Golden Globe for Best TV Limited Series.

“She goes, ‘I suppose now I have to join you.’ And we were like, ‘What?’ The two of us were just shocked," she laughed, adding that Streep happily signed up for the show without even seeing a script. “She hadn’t even read it. That’s how much she wanted to support us.”

It’s a dream come true for the Aquaman star to be acting alongside Streep again (the pair, who are longtime friends, previously starred in The Hours together). She recently credited the legendary Hollywood great as paving the way for older actresses in the business. Kidman told an audience at BAFTA: “There’s a time in this industry where they go ‘Oh well, you are past your due date … we are moving on to the next thing’.

"Having people like Meryl Streep and Susan Sarandon and Glenn Close … it gives you a chance… Maggie Smith and Judie Dench, the greats. They are paving the way.”

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The highly anticipated second season of HBO’s Big Little Lies has been confirmed to return to screens next year (hooray!) but... enjoy it while you can (boo!). Star of the popular drama series, Nicole Kidman, has hinted that she’s not entirely optimistic about the possibility of the show returning for a third season, once it reaches its final episode next year. Big Little Lies, currently in post-production, still has multiple branches of storyline that could surely be explored but, according to Kidman, we might all be left wanting more than the show can deliver.

Speaking to Variety about the huge and somewhat unexpected success of the show, the Aquaman actress addressed the possibility of revisiting Monterey, California for a third series. Explaining that it might unfortunately just be a logistical nightmare to organize, Kidman, who plays Celeste Wright, admitted: “I think it would be hard to get the whole group together. But we would love to do it.”

With such a star-studded, A-list cast including Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, and Shailene Woodley amongst others, it’s no surprise to hear that uniting everyone in one place at one time again for more filming is sure to be a tricky task.

But don’t get too down about what sounds like limited Big Little Lies binge-watching—there’s still season two to get through first, and it’s sure to be nothing less than fantastic thanks to its latest additions. As well as the rest of the previous cast, Kidman worked alongside Meryl Streep in the show’s newest episodes—a task which she admitted that even she found intimidating as a seasoned professional.

"I was terrified,” Nicole shared. “You’re acting opposite the great one. I get nervous anyway — but to be opposite her and not want her to think, 'Who is this amateur?' And also, we want to deliver a series for her that she's great in. Reese and I were like, 'We want this for her and for the other women.' They have much stronger roles in the second one."

Oh, just when you thought this show couldn't get any better... Petition to get that third season firmly into the diary?

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Any mention of the word "blonde" and you probably think pretty quickly of classic movie Legally Blonde and, in turn, Reese Witherspoon. The hair color has become a huge part of her identity in Hollywood ever since Elle Woods made her mark back in 2001. But this week, the actress appears to have done the unthinkable, and stepped out with a dramatic brunette hair transformation that leaves her almost unrecognizable.

Witherspoon was pictured on the L.A. set of her current project, Apple streaming series The Morning Show, where she revealed a fall-ready makeover with long, chestnut brown hair in loose waves. Looking entirely ready for the season, the Big Little Lies star was also wearing blue jeans, dark brown knee-high boots, and a Burgundy leather jacket.

Sure, she may have bitten the bullet and gone for a bold hair change, but it might be safer to assume that her new look is courtesy of a really good wig.

Over on her Instagram stories, Witherspoon shared a series of videos promoting her book club in which she was sporting her signature light blonde look. 24 hours earlier, she was also wearing longer, auburn locks as part of her Halloween costume, just to really make sure we’re all as confused as possible.

In the past, the 42-year-old actress has been committed enough to her acting roles that she’s taken the plunge and dyed her hair darker to suit the character. Her parts in The Good Lie and Walk The Line both saw her wearing brown hair, so it’s entirely possible that she’s done the same again.

Real dye job or not, we can probably all agree that Reese looks just as amazing with brunette hair. Maybe it’s time for Legally Brunette?

You’ve heard of Bring Your Kids To Work Day, but Nicole Kidman just took the concept to a whole new level. The actress was urged by Ellen during her latest appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to spill a few secrets about the upcoming second season of Big Little Lies, and Kidman revealed that she’s keeping it in the family for series two.

Kidman, who plays Celeste Wright on the hit HBO show, dropped the behind-the-scenes secret to Ellen that two of her daughters, Sunday, 10, and Faith, 7, will make cameos in the new season. It sounds like it could be a case of ‘blink and you’ll miss ‘em’ though, as both of her girls will appear unannounced in the background of an unnamed episode.

“[My kids] were in as extras on Big Little Lies,” 51-year-old Nicole shared of her two children with husband, Keith Urban. “I’ve never told anyone. There I am now, being a big mouth.”

It’s not hard to imagine that keeping the exciting secrets of a show like Big Little Lies is never easy. Kidman went on to admit that she and co-star/co-producer Reese Witherspoon are always struggling to keep upcoming plot twists under wraps. "Probably the two of us have a bit of a big mouth,” she confessed. “So we have to watch it. She’s a very good secret keeper! I've told my husband the entire plot line, but you're allowed to do that.”

Nicole’s second co-star, Zoe Kravitz, has also recently shared a few hints about what fans can potentially expect from season two of BLL. While her character, Bonnie, was more of a supporting character in the premiere season, the star has suggested that she’ll be more at the forefront of the drama next time with her own arc. Speaking to Rolling Stone for her recent naked photoshoot interview, Kravitz explained that she was a little disappointed that Bonnie never became more than a "sexy yoga teacher" and "second wife of someone important to a main character".

“There’s more about her in the book, and I was a little bummed we weren’t going to get to explore that,” she said. This time, however, there could be much more to learn about Bonnie. For season two: “They’re not using her to tell someone else’s story. She has her own story."

Big Little Lies season two, complete with Nicole's kids, is expected to finally arrive in 2019.

Nicole Kidman and her husband, the country music star Keith Urban, like to play a little game. Say they’re talking about a guitarist: “When I say to him, ‘What kind of guitarist is that person?’ we do this,” she says, patting her head, patting her heart, and then motioning ... downward. “Head, heart, or—” she cocks an eyebrow. “It’s a great way to describe different artists, right?"

It is. And it also begs a question: What kind of artist is she? “Well, I always say I’m a pretty even mix, but I’m probably dominated by that,” she says, with one hand over her heart. “If you don’t come from a feeling place, you just end up with an enormous amount of technique.

“I have this,” she says, tapping her head again, “but that can be overruled. It fluctuates too. I have a strong sexuality. It’s a huge part of who I am and my existence."

Anyone who has seen Kidman in HBO’s hit series Big Little Lies has witnessed all three elements at play, but offscreen her sexuality also manifests in more innocent ways, like when she sees her husband—who crashes our interview at Noshville Delicatessen in Nashville, where the couple has lived since they married in 2006. “Excuse me,” Urban says, approaching the booth. “Can I clear these dishes for you?” Kidman beams and pulls him down next to her. They eat here often enough that the burgundy-haired hostess, Linda, barely bats an eye when they enter but can’t help exhaling dreamily when they leave: “I could stare at him all day long. He’s just the most beautiful man!”

As for Kidman, on this sticky day, she seems to exist in a different climate, wearing her pale-blond curls swept up at the nape of her neck and a charcoal blazer despite the heat. If the other diners have noticed a movie star eating among them, they aren’t doing anything about it, which is one reason why Kidman loves living here. It’s hardly a quiet city—on any given day, the streets are filled with tourists and Pedal Taverns powered by drunk bachelorettes—but it isn’t crawling with paparazzi, like L.A. or New York. It is crawling with country-music stars, many of whom like this particular diner. “You have Vince Gill, who comes every day,” Kidman says, forking some fruit. “He’s usually here for breakfast, so I thought I’d see him.”

Kidman now considers Nashville her hometown and her two daughters with Urban, 10-year-old Sunday Rose and seven-year-old Faith Margaret, Nashvillians. (For souvenir shopping, Kidman recommends a place downtown where one daughter got her first pair of pink cowboy boots.) The family home has a recording studio for Urban. Kidman used it herself while singing on Keith’s 2017 track “Female.” “I was eating breakfast and went down in my pajamas,” she says. “Yeah, I’ll do anything for him."

“I have a very sort of quiet life, I suppose,” she adds. “I try to live a soulful, artistic life.” That means “trying to raise my daughters in a really conscious, present way. Time becomes so precious as you get older,” she elaborates. It also means signing on to projects that resonate with her deeply. “I mean, I feel probably more now than I ever have. I’m incredibly sensitive to the world and to the way in which we’re all navigating together as people. Artistically, I can make statements.”

Statements like “Love is love”—the message of her new film Boy Erased (out November 2), directed by Joel Edgerton and based on Garrard Conley’s 2016 memoir about being a Baptist pastor’s son (played by Lucas Hedges) who is pressured to undergo gay conversion therapy in Arkansas. Kidman plays his torn mother; Russell Crowe plays his intolerant father.

“I waited a long time to be married to Nicole,” Crowe jokes. The actors have known each other since traveling in the same circles in Australia, where director Jane Campion encouraged a young Kidman to pursue acting as a career. “We didn’t talk until a jam-packed house party in Darlinghurst. She was 19, maybe,” he recalls. “I say we talked, but I actually don’t think I got more than a word or two out. She’s kind of held me spellbound ever since.”

It’s a subtle kind of magic she casts in person, not so different from the spell she casts on screen, whether she’s playing a fame-hungry weathercaster in To Die For or Virginia Woolf in The Hours (a role for which she won an Academy Award). “Nicole’s acting is too seamless to describe these days, really,” Crowe says. “She is so consummate in how she inhabits characters. In the great actors, there’s always the concurrent contradictions of shyness and showmanship, and acute sensitivity and internal steel. She is brave on behalf of the truth, and that clarity is what makes her so compelling.”

Brave. It’s different from being fearless. Kidman experiences fear. “Crippling fear at times,” she says. “But at the same time, I was raised by stoics.” The actress, who was born in Hawaii, grew up in Sydney, the eldest daughter of a biochemist father and a nurse-educator mother. In particular, she credits her late father, who later became a psychologist, with teaching her about stoicism at an early age. “It’s a philosophy, a way of behaving and being in the world, which I kind of don’t have,” she says wryly. “I have a little bit of it, but I have far more of, like, ‘Oh, my God, how am I going to get through this? I can’t get through this! I can’t get up!’ And then I think, ‘Get up!’” She shakes her head. “I think once you have children, your resilience is built, and your ability to go, ‘OK, I can’t wallow...and I certainly can’t get into bed for a week and never get out.’”

Still, resilience is a quality she has been building in herself for along time. “I’ve had artistic failures,” Kidman says. She has endured painful trials in her personal life as well, some of which she has spoken about openly, such as her fertility struggles and miscarriages during her marriage to Tom Cruise. After marrying in 1990, they divorced in 2001, and their adopted children, Isabella, now 25, and Connor, 23, opted to live with Cruise. Even today, Kidman is the subject of intense scrutiny when it comes to her relationship with her older children. “They’re adults now, married and off in their own lives,” she says. “They’re totally grown-up people.”

After brunch, she’s heading to New York City to see her “Mumma,” whom she has flown in, along with some friends, from Australia. “I’m on daughter duty for the next two days,” Kidman says. “I’m going to take her to the theater to see Carey Mulligan in Girls & Boys. I’ll take her shopping—you know, things that you do.” While in the city, she also plans to visit with Naomi Watts, one of several Australians Kidman counts among her closest friends and collaborators. (Friends call them“Nic” and “Nai.”) “This concept in Australia that goes back a long way is mateship,” says Bruna Papandrea, an executive producer on Big Little Lies (along with Kidman and Reese Witherspoon) who’s also part of that group. “Friendships are like family.” And Kidman is a crucial part of that family, in both Australia, where she and Urban own an operating farm in New South Wales, and the U.S.

Papandrea recalls one time in particular when Kidman was there for her. “When I really struggled to get pregnant, and I had multiple miscarriages, I remember at one of our other friends’ weddings being completely bereft and having that moment where you think it’s not going to happen,” she says. “And I remember [Nicole] taking me in her arms and just saying, ‘It’s going to be OK; you’ll make a family in the way you can,’ and how significant that was in that moment.

“You have to have empathy as a human to show empathy as an actor,” Papandrea adds.

On-screen, Kidman’s empathy seems to border on telepathy. There’s something almost supernatural about how she embodies her characters. As she puts it, “I get to live my life, but I get to go into other people’s lives too. They’re transient, but I absolutely live those lives.” Once in a while, she steps into a mythical being, like the queen of Atlantis, which she plays in the sci-fi fantasy Aquaman, based on the popular comic of the same name, out in December. (“My way of having a little street cred with my children.”) But she has also entered her share of tortured souls. She recently finished shooting Destroyer, a crime thriller directed by Karyn Kusama in which she plays an LAPD detective who must reckon with bad choices she has made in the past, also out in December. “That was a hell place to exist,” Kidman says. “I was completely in pain, to the point my husband was like, ‘I cannot wait for this to end.’”

For Kusama, seeing Kidman at work was a revelation. “Nicole the movie star exists, and that is one facet of her personal makeup,” the director says. “But another facet that now is becoming the prominent expression of who Nicole is, is Nicole the artist. It’s not that she’s giving up one thing for the other, but you feel that she’s embracing her role as an artist so fully and so completely. Between takes, I would approach her, and she would still be that character in a way. I would see her mind and her heart both working to explore something. And when you see an actor working at that level, it’s thrilling.”

These are the experiences that keep Kidman excited about making movies. “When I have the ability, I always choose to go back to that very basic, in-the-trenches filmmaking,” she says, eyes sparking like blue fire. And lately, she has stepped up her efforts even more to support female filmmakers and tell women’s stories with her Blossom Films production company. (With approximately 50 movies as an actor to her credit, she just signed a first-look film and TV deal with Amazon Studios, which recently greenlit a TV series adaptation of Janice Y.K. Lee’s The Expatriates.)

Kidman traces her own feminism back to her childhood in the 1970s, when her mother used to make her and her younger sister, Antonia, hand out leaflets advocating for political candidates who supported women’s rights. “We’d get teased at school: ‘Oh, your mom is so radical,’” Kidman says. “At the time, we’d roll our eyes and be embarrassed. But my sister and I are both advocates now. It was an incredible gift to be given.”

As a Goodwill Ambassador for U.N. Women, Kidman has long been a behind-the-scenes champion of women’s rights, but she is becoming louder in her activism. In her best-actress acceptance speech for Big Little Lies at this year’s Golden Globes, she broadcast her feminism to the world, touching on everything from domestic abuse to the power of female friendship. Some of these issues are baked into the first season of Big Little Lies, even though the show and the book it’s based on predate #MeToo. (A second season, with Meryl Streep joining the cast, has finished shooting.) But Kidman’s character, Celeste—who at once lusts for and lives in fear of her violent husband, played by Alexander Skarsgård—quickly became a part of the conversation about power dynamics and sexual and domestic abuse. “I think that’s just when culture and storytelling collide—probably storytelling igniting parts of it and unraveling parts of it. Domestic abuse, or any sort of abuse, and that misuse of power...it’s insidious,” says Kidman, who also received an Emmy for her role. “The day after I won, I was in San Francisco doing a fundraiser for domestic violence. It’s probably the Catholic in me, but as soon as there’s some sort of glory or you receive something, you then have got to immediately counteract it with giving back.”

Last October, following multiple allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Kidman publicly showed her support for “all women...who speak out against any abuse and misuse of power, be it domestic violence or sexual harassment in the workforce.” She didn’t reference Weinstein by name and made no mention of being harassed herself by the producer, but they worked together on many films, including Cold Mountain, The Others, and, most recently, Lion.

The movement has sparked debate on how we should look at art made by alleged abusers. “I look at those films that Polanski made, and they’re amazing. I’m sort of navigating through it myself with my own moral compass,” she says. “What do you do? Do you ban it? Or see it as art? Or judge it in this time looking back at that time? I have no answer.”

But she does have questions. One of her favorites: “‘What do you mean?’ And ‘I don’t understand.’ And ‘Teach me,’” she says. “Those are really important things to constantly be saying. I’m willing to learn. Since I was a kid, I’ve loved learning, growing, broadening, understanding, being challenged, being dissected. And I’ve had some of the greatest teachers in the world.”

The late Stanley Kubrick, who directed her in Eyes Wide Shut, was one. “He came into my life and was like, ‘OK, I’m going to make a lot of your beliefs unstable right now for the reason of making you teachable,’ which is a great place to exist in,” she says. Campion, who directed her in The Portrait of a Lady, is another. “One of the great minds,” Kidman says. “She’s got an enormous amount of wisdom.” The actress also tells a story about the late novelist Philip Roth, whose novel The Human Stain was the basis for the eponymous movie in which she starred. As they were getting to know each other, she used to ask the author one persistent question: “‘But why, Philip?’” she recalls. “And he would go, ‘Nicole, Why is the worst question.’” He later presented her with a copy of The Human Stain, which he had inscribed with the words “Why not?”

“I sort of live by that now,” she says, smiling. “Why not?”

This article originally appears in the October issue of Marie Claire, on newsstands September 20.

The Big Little Lies cast has wrapped up filming season two, and they're closer than ever. In Harper's BAZAAR's October issue, Zoë Kravitz, who plays Bonnie Carlson on BLL, reveals the empowering dynamic on set between co-stars Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley, Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, and the rest of the female crew.

"Our crew right now, on Big Little Lies, is great. There are so many women on our set—it’s so cool. I feel a different kind of energy, this feminine energy," she says in the HBZ interview with Reese Witherspoon. "Not only because the cast is dominated by women, but also because props and costume and grips and lighting and camera operators are too. My experience doing all my emotional scenes, I’ve never felt so safe and supported. It’s really allowing me to go to a deeper place."

Kravitz also admits that she totally did not expect BLL to resonate with fans as much as it did. She did, however, know that it touched on important female topics and brilliantly illustrated the complexity of each of the characters.

"I knew that it touched on some really important things, and that it was a nice mix of parenting and female friendship, and also that it incorporated real issues and dealt with domestic violence in a way that had never really been done before."

"[The complexity] is the thing that attracted all of us to the characters. I don’t think I realized that not only were we as actors and artists hungry to do that, but people are hungry to see it and receive it," she continues. "It’s a similar thing with the Harry Potter spin-off sequel, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, which I have coming out in November. It’s been such a crazy experience being part of an epic world that has such an incredible fan base. It’s similar to filming the second season of Big Little Lies. The excitement can be turned into pressure for it to be great. But that also creates motivation."

Read Reese Witherspoon's full Harper's BAZAAR interview with Zoë Kravitz here.

Reese Witherspoon spearheaded the creation of HBO's hit-series Big Little Lies, so it obviously has a special place in her heart. The multi-hyphenate actress recently showed her fans just how much she loves the show by launching a dress named after her BLL character, Madeline Martha Mackenzie.

Available through Witherspoon's personal Draper James fashion line, which is full of southern charm, the "Madeline," silk number features a detailed leaf print and yellow beaded embroidery. The vibrant dress clearly pays homage to both Witherspoon's southern roots and her character's preppy housewife vibes.

A quick recap of Madeline's style:

Here's Witherspoon looking cute in the "Madeline" dress:

Draper James "Madeline" dress, $295 SHOP IT

The feminine dress is absolutely a genius design on Witherspoon's part because now every BLL fan can channel her character's style, and, essentially, Witherspoon's too. If you're looking for a place to wear the limited-edition piece, it would work as a wedding guest dress or as a Halloween costume should you wish to dress like Witherspoon's show character. (What? It's never too early to plan ahead.)

Nicole Kidman tearfully accepted the SAG award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a television movie or miniseries, for her role on Big Little Lies. While honoring the actors nominated with her in the category (notably two of her BLL co-stars), she also had an important message for older women in the industry. Read the full transcript from her speech below.

Oh, wow! Yikes! I'm crying. It means a lot to me. I've been working since I was 14 years old, thank you, SAG-AFTRA for giving me something. I'm incredibly nervous because this is reality colliding with fantasy right now. I was working until 1:00 a.m.—which is a fantastic blessing—last night, but I have the flu and I'm playing a pretty out-there role...character right now, so I have had a little trouble shedding it, but I'm here and I'm incredibly grateful.

To receive this at this stage in my life is extraordinary, and at this time in the industry, when these things are going on, and for this role. I would like to acknowledge the other actresses in this category, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern—my girlfriends, first and foremost, my beyond-talented acting partners, I share this with you. And also I want to say Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lang, I revere you, I've watched you, and I've learned from you. There are others—Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda, Judy Davis, Shirley McClain, Judi Dench...the list is so long. I would like to say so many names, but I can't right now. But I want to thank you all for your trail-blazing performances you have given over your careers and how wonderful it is that our careers today can go beyond 40 years old.

Twenty years ago, we were pretty washed up by this stage in our lives, so that's not the case now. We have proven, and these actresses and so many more are proving that we are potent and powerful and viable. I just beg that the industry stays behind us because our stories are finally being told. It's only the beginning. And I'm so proud to be a part of a community that is instigating this change, but I applaud the writers, directors, studios, and financiers to put money behind our stories. We can continue to do this but only with the support of the industry and that money and passion. Also, I do have trail blazers in my life, Chris, Leslie, Katie, Miranda, Lizzy, to my family, I'm nothing without you. Thank you to all of the actors that gave me the chance to say this.

Laura Dern took home the Golden Globe Sunday night for her role in the HBO series Big Little Lies. And in her acceptance speech, she didn't shy away from tackling the dark issues that the show is known for.

"Many of us were taught not to tattle. It was a culture of silencing and that was normalized," Dern said on stage. "I urge all of us to not only support survivors and bystanders who are brave enough to tell their truth, but to promote restorative justice."

Watch her speech below:

And read the full transcript here:

"Thank you, HFPA, for the honor of joining in the company of these extraordinary fellow nominees who inspire me so deeply. And namely to the brilliant Shailene, Zoe, Reese, and Nicole. My new family. To our fearless leader, Jean Mark, and HBO. To our magical producers and especially for caring so much to make things work so I could be part of this, I'm so forever grateful.

To David E. Kelly. Our superhero who took Lianne's words and gave me particularly the most outrageous, complicated woman and a terrified mother, terrified because her little girl was being abused and bullied and she was too afraid to speak up.

Many of us were taught not to tattle. It was a culture of silencing and that was normalized. I urge all of us to not only support survivors and bystanders who are brave enough to tell their truth, but to promote restorative justice. May we also please protect and employ them. May we teach our children that speaking out without the fear of retribution is our culture's new north star. Bless you.

Bless everyone who worked on this. All the people who support me and my beautiful children. Thank you for all of your work and love. Good night."

Nicole Kidman took home the first Golden Globe during Sunday night's ceremony for her role in the HBO series Big Little Lies. And in her acceptance speech, she took time to address the #TimesUp movement in which stars wore black as a protest against sexual harassment and assault.

Kidman thanked her mother, who was active in the women's movement, and noted that her character on Big Little Lies had reasons to support the #TimesUp cause too. "This character that I played represents something that is the center of our conversation right now: abuse," she said on stage. "I do believe, and I hope, we can elicit change through the stories we tell and the way we tell them. Let's keep the conversation alive."

Read the transcript of her speech below:

"Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh, first cab off the rank. That means my daughters are still awake. Sunny, Faith, I love you, I'm bringing this home to you, babies. Thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press for supporting us.

Thank you to HBO, Richard Plepler, for supporting and committing to us. When I say us, I'm talking about Reese Witherspoon and myself. We did this because of our friendship, our creative union and our support of each other. And I love you.

Also, I want to say Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley and Zoey Kravitz, we sat at a table, pledged allegiance to each other and commitment to each other and this is ours to share. Wow. The power of women. Also, I speak on behalf of the five of us because we would not be in existence with this show and it wouldn't be as good as it has been without the mastery of Jean-MarcVallée and David E. Kelley. And also Liane Moriarty. And I have to say, Bruna Papandrea and Per Saari, your tenacity is amazing. Thank you.

There's been people in my life, please, for decades, who I just, if I get a chance to thank them, I'm thanking them. Kevin Susan Batson, Alan Wortheimer, Chris Andrews. Wendy Day. All of you. Miranda. Liz. All of you. I love you.

And my mama. My mama was an advocate for the women's movement when I was growing up. And because of her, I'm standing here. My achievements are her achievements. Antonia Kidman, my sister, and I say thank you, Janelle Kidman, for what you fought for so hard. This character that I played represents something that is the center of our conversation right now: abuse. I do believe, and I hope, we can elicit change through the stories we tell and the way we tell them. Let's keep the conversation alive. Let's do it, and Keith Urban, when my cheek is against yours, everything melts away. And that is love. It's true. I love you so much. God bless you. Thank you."

Reese Witherspoon will be hosting your next dinner party. Well, sort of. On top of her incredible acting career, Witherspoon also owns lifestyle and fashion brand Draper James, and now she's collaborating with Crate and Barrel to add a new title to her resume: brand ambassador. What that means for you? Awesome items made for entertaining.

Amid all the talk of whether or not Big Little Lies will return for a second season, MarieClaire.com caught up with Witherspoon at the unveiling of her Crate and Barrel partnership to discuss the collaboration, her favorite way to entertain, and how she feels about those eight (!) *huge* BLL Emmy wins.

The partnership with Crate and Barrel was kind of a no-brainer.

"I started Draper James because growing up in the South we love to entertain, we love parties, and we love having family and friends over. So when I created the brand I wanted to talk about entertaining and lifestyle. And then there was this natural collaboration with Crate and Barrel that’s been doing such an incredible quality of work for so long. We’re bringing southern charm to their timeless sensibility. We’re just a perfect match."

She's *incredibly* close to her Big Little Lies co-stars.

"I've talked to Nicole almost everyday for the past 12 days. We just have so much to talk about and we’re producing some other projects together. She’s also really close to me—she lives in Nashville. I actually talk to Laura Dern and Zoë Kravitz almost everyday [laughs]. I would talk to Shailene, but she’s in Fiji for the time being so that makes it a little hard. We’re all really close."

She loves to entertain—and will definitely be hosting her friends around Christmastime. 🎄

"I have a Christmas party every year so then I'll get to show [my co-stars] all the great stuff I’ve been working on. I love to have lots of different sizes and shapes of cake plates in my house. Crate and Barrel has some great ones in marble."

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Winning eight Emmys was completely surreal to her.

"It was great to have so much of the team recognized for their incredible hard work. It’s sort of surreal. I kept looking at Nicole and crying, ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ It really speaks to the fact that when women collaborate together they can really accomplish a lot. I believe wholeheartedly in female partnership. Just the idea of collaborating with other very hardworking women and trying to create opportunities for other women in our business is very fulfilling to me."

The response she received from the audience proves the need to create better roles for women.

"I actually have to say it was one of those jobs where you couldn’t believe that we actually got to work together. We had so much fun. And then we had this incredible response from the audience so it really made me feel like there’s a huge audience out there that isn’t seeing what they want to see about women. They want to know more about women’s lives."

She's *definitely* going to save pieces from the collaboration for her daughter Ava when she makes her way to college next fall.

"Oh yeah. How great would it be to have a dorm room decorated with Crate and Barrel pieces? That would be amazing."

You can purchase select Draper James pieces at Crate and Barrel both in-store and online. Draper James will release co-designed collections available spring and summer 2018. Get a sneak peek of Reese in all of her holiday glory below. 

If the GOOP empire is any indication, women want to look, eat, own their sexuality, and smell like Gwyneth Paltrow. To achieve the latter, we plan on bathing in GOOP's new fragrance Shiso—a cool, spicy, and earthy bouquet inspired by the Japanese flower—all summer long.

In honor of the scent's launch, we caught up with Paltrow to talk the art of fragrance, the power of going barefoot, sexual taboos, and Big Little Lies—because yes, she's as maniacally obsessed as you are.

On GOOP's new Shiso fragrance:

"I have a fantastic relationship with our nose and when we had our first meeting, I said I would love it to be as layered as the fall fragrance, but to have it be sparkly, optimistic, and cleaner. He has all the scents distilled in tiny and super potent dilutions, and then you can smell different kinds of flowers, plants, and bark. It's quite painstaking. We ended up with Shiso, which I am totally obsessed with!

On editing down her fragrance wardrobe:

"I've always loved fragrance. I have a big collection of fragrances and I love the bottles, but unfortunately so many of them have toxic ingredients. Starting GOOP, I've learned way too much about what's hidden in fragrances, so I really only use non-toxic fragrance right now. I use our first perfume, this one, and then I use the ones that we are working on so I've become a GOOP convert. I always have worn them seasonally, which is why we're doing this a seasonal scent. I like changing. When spring comes you have a new fragrance."

goop Fragrance edition 02 - shiso, $165; goop.com.

On why natural ingredients are important:

"The word fragrance is a little bit like a Trojan horse because companies can hide anything behind that one word and say, Oh, it's our trade secret—we don't want anyone to produce it or copy it. The laws haven't been changed in a long time and unfortunately that lets companies who make synthetic fragrance use chemicals that are not good for us. Almost all of synthetic fragrances have endocrine-disrupting chemicals in them, which isn't good for women or developing women. Our hormones are always in flux and we should really stay away from endocrine disruptors. Unfortunately, conventional fragrances are full of them. Women deserve to have a luxurious skincare line that isn't full of parabens, carcinogens, and plastics."

On the "earthing" technique:

"I'm a big barefoot girl. It's incredibly grounding, literally. Not only energetically, but spiritually grounding to be barefoot and touching the earth. It sounds a little hippie-ish, but I think that it works."

On GOOP tackling sexual taboos like anal sex:

"Our mission for ourselves, friends, and audience is that we believe in the wellness of the whole woman. I think holding onto judgements about your life, body, and sexuality is damaging to the way you were born. We strive to unearth subjects that women feel strange about, whether it's body image, sexuality, health, or relationships because we want to shine light on these things and give women the permission to feel like if Goop is talking about X, Y, and Z, then we can talk about it too. That's feedback that we get a lot because we are coming at it from an educational place. We want to educate ourselves, we want to ask questions, and we want to pass on the information. It's not for salaciousness. It's positioned in a way where people feel that it isn't dirty or pornographic. They can ask questions or talk to a girlfriend about it. We want to start interesting conversations."

On why Big Little Lies is so important:

"We are living in this culture now where it's really exciting to be a woman. We have taken permission to be whatever kind of woman we want to be. However, we are also still putting pressure on ourselves to be X, Y, and Z—to come off as not being flawed. There's this pressure that women are putting on themselves because they perceive that other women are putting on them. I thought it was a beautiful dismantling of the falseness of how women think they need to convince their friends that they're superhuman or not enough just the way that they are. I thought it was really relevant and resonant and I just loved it!"

On why they should green light a second season of Big Little Lies:

"I didn't read the book, so I was completely a virgin to it. I don't know if people are like, Oh well the book stopped, so what would it be? But I think that these are such important topics to explore."

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'Twin Peaks' (reboot)'I Love Dick''The Deuce''The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks''Sharp Objects''Mary Kills People''The Handmaid's Tale''Casting JonBenet''Stranger Things' (Season 2)'Claws'

On Monday night, the HBO hit series Big Little Lies came to a shocking end. And even though the show's story wrapped, the BLL finale left people wanting more. While the prospect of another season remains a mystery, here's a list of upcoming dramas to look out for if you need to fill that "big little" void.

'Twin Peaks' (reboot)

The '90s cult classic about the murder of a small-town prom queen makes its official return on Showtime this spring. With Kyle McLachlan reprising his role as FBI Agent Cooper and several other familiar faces, the reboot will pick up 25 years after the mysterious death of 17-year-old Laura Palmer. The two-hour episode of Twin Peaks will premiere on May 21.

'I Love Dick'

The 1997 novel by Chris Kraus is adapted for the screen in this story about an academic couple, Chris and Sylvere, played by Griffin Dunne and Kathryn Hahn. Their marriage is put to the test when both develop a fixation with another professor named Dick, played by Kevin Bacon. Directed by Jill Solloway, known for her work on HBO's classic Six Feet Under and Amazon's Transparent, the dramedy premieres May 12 on Amazon.

'The Deuce'

James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal are set to star in the upcoming HBO series that centers around the porn industry and prostitution in Manhattan in the 1970s and 1980s. The vintage-inspired series from David Simon and George Pelecanos, known for their work on The Wire and Treme, follows Vincent (Franco), a scrappy bartender, and the daily woes of prostitute Eileen "Candy" Merrell (Gyllenhaal). But the best part of the new series? Double the Franco. The actor also plays Vincent's twin brother, Frankie. With the show's production going back to October 2015, The Deuce is set to premiere this summer.

'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks'

If you were moved by the strong female bonds and women's empowerment in Big Little Lies, then the HBO adaption of the remarkable book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks will be sure to get you. Written by science reporter Rebecca Skloot, played by Rose Byrne in the film, the story follows her journey interviewing the family members of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cancerous cells were used to form a groundbreaking human cell line in 1951. And though Henrietta's cells helped contribute to medical breakthroughs, changing others' lives, her family reclaims their mother's story of how her cells were taken against her will for science. Oprah Winfrey shows off her acting chops once again, playing Deborah Lacks, Henrietta's daughter, who is the main subject of Skloot's story. The TV movie airs on HBO on April 22.

'Sharp Objects'

If you're in the mood for another dark HBO drama, the adaptation of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects will be just what you're looking for. Directed by Big Little Lies's Jean-Marc Valle, the show stars Amy Adams as Camille Preaker, a reporter newly released from a psychiatric hospital who is forced to return to her small hometown to cover the murders of two teenage girls. While reporting, Preaker begins to identify with the young victims, forcing her to relive dark times from her past.

'Mary Kills People'

The series that originally premiered on Canada's Global TV Network in January will now make its U.S. debut on Lifetime this April. Mary Kills People focuses on Dr. Mary Harris, played by Caroline Dhavernas, who is an ER doctor by day, but illegally working at night, assisting patients who no longer have the will to live and want to die on their own terms. The show follows "Bloody Mary" as her day job and her evening work of assisted suicide become more intertwined. The series premieres on LifetimeSunday, April 23 at 10pm ET/PT.

'The Handmaid's Tale'

Another powerful show about women and women's rights will be the highly anticipated adaptation of Margret Atwood's 1985 novel, The Handmaid's Tale. Hulu's series follows the tale of a dystopian society where women's rights are completely revoked and those who are fertile are reduced to birthing machines for those women who cannot bear children. While the plot, which is eerily relevant to today's women's movements, is strong enough on its own, the best thing about the adapted series is by far the phenomenal cast. Starring Elisabeth Moss as Offred, Samira Wiley as Moira, and Alexis Bledel as Ofglen, the series is sure to deliver.

'Casting JonBenet'

Twenty years later, the death of JonBenet Ramsey remains a mystery, and a topic of fascination. Over the course of 15 months, documentary filmmaker Kitty Green and her crew traveled to the Ramsey family hometown in Colorado, where they audition local actors as the Ramsey family. They also uncover how each person remembered and related to the infamous Ramsey family crime. The haunting series will examine how the murder of this 6-year-old girl still heavily impacts people today; it is set to stream on Netflix on April 28.

'Stranger Things' (Season 2)

Tagging along with the kids in BLL and Casting JonBenet is Eleven and her Stranger Things crew. Millie Bobbie Brown will be reprising her now iconic role and Winona Ryder will be back as concerned mother Joyce Byers. And, in addition to Ghostbusters costumes and "leggo my Eggo" commercials, The Goonies and Lord of the Rings star Sean Astin will join the cast as Bob Newby, a nerdy classmate from Joyce's high school. With a lot more sci-fi thrills to expect in the new season, the award-winning series returns to Netflix on Halloween.

'Claws'

The beauty salon sometimes serves as a place of relaxation and a safe place for women. But the standard beauty salon is getting a makeover in Niecy Nash's new TNT dark comedy, Claws. In the series, Nash plays Desna, a-not-so-typical South Florida hair salon owner, who claims her "money laundering days are over" in the series trailer. But from the quick montage of money, bodies on boats, and prescription pads in the show's teaser, it would seem that Desna and her salon squad are involved in way more than just manis and pedis. TNT's new show debuts in June.

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When all your favorite actors come together in one ensemble cast, there are only two options: epic disaster (ahem, certain superhero movies that shall go nameless) or epic success. And in the case of HBO's brand-new Big Little Lies—starring Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodly, and Zoë Kravitz—we're talking *huge* success. The show is mysterious, addictive, and brilliantly acted—and in addition to the A-list cast, features a bunch of new faces who absolutely kill it.

MarieClaire.com spoke to Big Little Lies actress Kathryn Newton about what it was like working with her idols, chilling on set with her on-screen mom Reese Witherspoon, and re-defining teen angst.

On the time Reese Witherspoon gave pretty great life advice:

"After the table read is when we first started to bond. I told her I went to high school and I'm a regular kid, and did this show instead of trying to play golf at USC as a walk-on. And she was like, 'Well, do you want to go to college?' I said yes, and she was like 'You need to go to college.' Every time I see her she says, 'So have you signed up for college yet?!' She's a realist."

On her character's sex-positive story arc:

"Talking about sex can be awkward at that age, but my character has women in her life she can talk to. Sex is a big deal. And you don't have to talk to your mom—you can talk to a friend, a sister, someone responsible. That's a really important message. Everyone goes through it. Every girl goes through that stage in her life, and we shine light on it in a particular way that a lot of people will relate to. It's an awkward subject."

On how the show subverts the "pitting women against each other" stereotype:

"The point of the show is that secrets, snide comments, and insults actually bring the women together in a profound way to protect each other. In the end, these women have each other's backs—even though they can be horrible and mean. In the end, they get each other. Also, the majority of the people in charge of this project were women. It went so smoothly, there were no issues—I loved being on that set. Women can do it."

On going without makeup for the role:

"As an actor, you audition a lot for 'the girlfriend,' or the 'hot girl.' It's way more fun to play a role like this. She's a rebel, she's a feminist. I went to set without hair and makeup. That's really fun, to be that free. Women are always told to look a certain way—look cute, or dress nice. She doesn't do that. She's unforgivably herself, and it's hard to be yourself—especially as a teenager."

On crying with Shailene Woodley:

"I was such a big fan and I was like 'Oh my god she's such a big star, she's not going to talk to me.' The day I saw her I realized she's one of the deepest girls. I don't even have words. I'll have a conversation with her and be crying."

Big Little Lies airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO.

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